Thinking about Breakfast: Butler Upsets Pitt

Some despise these kinds of games, and they have a right to--it doesn't seem fair that we put kids under such a microscope, at such a young age, when so much comes down to attrition, fouls, and grit, that in the NCAA Tournament one of the best games of the year can devolve into a foul shooting contest. And while I do enjoy the NBA's postseason more than the NCAA Tournament, I can't go as far as Bethlehem Shoals and say that "whatever this is it isn't basketball." A clock is a clock, whether it is digital or mechanical and you still have to tell time by it. And even in an age when life is lived at a faster pace than ever before, it often transforms into the frozen stare downs of first world powers and third world dictators. This is life. This is basketball. Pace has nothing to do with it. And despite our calls for everyone to just get along, world peace, and the rapture of scintillating beauty, ugliness and violence clot in our veins and reduce us to primal beasts marking our territories, like dogs, and yesterday, while watching Pitt and Butler, it was clear that no matter what Shoals says there are winners and losers in college basketball.




SIDENOTE: While I disagree with two statements Shoals made about the Tournament compared to the NBA, his larger premise about the former being a broken narrative and the latter being one consistent narrative is something I'm going to have to think about further, because I think it's more complicated than one is this and the other is that. Shoals believes that the NCAA Tournament relies on anarchy and chaos and that those who love it--love it for its unpredictability. However, doesn't the predictability of the NBA rob its narrative of a true exposition? And doesn't each Playoff series turn into a separate vignette or a labor of Hercules? I don't know. Just pondering. Eating some breakfast before moving on to the next, big thing.

Crossing Enemy Lines (or my first trip into the Oakland Zoo)

Finally, I decided to use my new school affiliation to attend a basketball game on the cheap. And so my first experience in the Oakland Zoo is also my first post here. So, as a Marquette basketball fan, I went to the Pitt-Siena game last night, "disguised" as Pitt fan. I really have no problem with Pitt except for when they play MU, but I definitely didn't feel like I belonged in the student section for Pitt. It was a little unsettling. But to my surprise, with school not in session, I was able to get 2nd row seats for the game, amazing in its own right. To be honest though, the student section was uninspiring. It's a fairly small area that they give the students, and they weren't that rowdy. I know, I know, its much different because school wasn't in session, but still I wasn't impressed. There cheers are nothing original, the same as every other school. Apparently, Doug Gottlieb of ESPN, who was announcing the game, said the Zoo wasn't a tough place to play. I would have to agree, it really wasn't anything special. A side note about Gottlieb. He was seated right in front of us, and honestly, he doesn't seem like he likes people, students especially. You know when you see Dickie V on TV, and he loves being around students? Doug Gottlieb is the exact opposite. Boy, does he look stuck up.

Anyway, as for the game, Pitt is for real. There top three of Levance Fields, Sam Young, and Dejaun Blair will carry that team very far this year. Dejuan Blair is honestly my new favorite player. The guy is a beast. He pulled down 16 boards to go along with 21 points and was the difference in the game. Honestly, he just looks like he can have his way with whomever he wants. My new favorite player. By the way, Pitt won 77-66 I think. The game was pretty uneventful, Siena was a scrappy underdog who couldn't pull it out, blah, blah, blah.

So my first trip into the zoo was uneventful. I definitely need to see it in action during school to see if it actually is intense, but right now I wouldn't expect it to be much different.