Mormons, Bears, Bulls, Bigots and more Mormons

8:30pm

Quick entry while I sweat the suddenly-possible cover by Nova . . .

RC: "Prop for $X: who was the greatest player in Gonzaga history?"
Tony/Troy/JC: "Adam Morrison!"
Brent: "Feliz Navidad!"

Holy shit. Also, Feliz Navidad is actually just as far from the correct answer as AdMo . . . Definitely getting rough. Real rough.

5:45pm

"What are the odds of me waking up on the floor with your feet on my face, versus the odds of you waking up on the floor with my balls on your chin?"

So basically that's where it has gone - we grilled on the patio during the "dead period" once UW got up fairly large . . . I added UW -6, so I might actually accidentally win a game. Weird.

The key, though, was throwing the football around out back while grilling. Brent is well on his way to out of his mind, and had the Jake Christensen/Brett Favre Memorial "Throw The Ball 90MPH On A Line" Problem (also known as "mashing the x-button for every pass") . . . we tried to play 500. That failed. Brent and Troy would try to track the ball in the air, then wave their hands wildly, then it would fall about 8 feet away. Simply stunning.

The best part was watching Brent try to catch regular passes - he looked like he was wearing oven mitts, or trying to catch the ball with the back of his hands like a clapping seal. High comedy - I would definitely take Warren from There's Something About Mary before him at a tailgate game.

Brent was just asked to say something retarded for the blog . . . mission accomplished: "The capitol of Djibouti is Djibouti." Thanks.

UW looks pretty great, and the SEC 'revival' may have been premature due to LSU just overmatching a less-athletic Butler team. I'm adding Villanova at -15, mostly because it's in Philly and American's SOS was rough . . . but I really need the 3 points from home-field advantage to stay in it. Thinking about just fading the Big 10, too, and going Clemson (-4.5) and Texas (-4.5). Further bulletins as events warrant.

4:20pm

So the UNI game was a shit circus - just all sorts of awkward, including multiple iffy charge calls that nearly sent Brent into convulsions. It's kind of sad, actually - he would have won a posthumous Oscar had he simply succumbed to the poor officiating (and Lunesta).

I've now officially lost every game, which is sweet - I can't complain yet, I mean, it's not like I spend hours and hours (of billable time) investigating this stuff. I'm really smart. Ugh.

We have a couple of choice Brent quotes so far:

"BLEED IN YOUR SKULL (to Robbie Hummel)" . . . when he learned about Hummel's fractured vertebra, it changed to:
"YOU BROKEBACK FUCK"
"I'm going to Pur-Doody in Tony's mouth" (the sixth or seventh such reference - I seriously have no idea)
"Captain Mother-Jizz-Mouth made my cocktail with Diet . . . dick."

Everyone (but me, obv) had the UNC under at 163 . . . the game was on pace for well over 600 points for a while, but these guys required zero scoring in the last 1:50. To a man, they were complaining about UNC's sportsmanship - like it was a low-brow move to keep playing. Apparently, Roy Williams has no class for allowing the team to continue to play hard . . . then, all sorts of high-fiving when the over missed. I love this weekend.

Oh, then Brent described the time Troy's wife saw his penis - it included the epic line, "put a little barbecue sauce on that, and it's a smokey leee-ink . . . "

So yeah - the smokey link. I guess. Unreal.

2:40pm

Forgot to add this (from during a Nemanja Calasan FT attempt):

TROY: "He's Serbian."
EVERYONE: "ORLY?"
BRENT: "He looks like Dwight Schrute's brother. Mose Schrute. He likes beets."

Uhhhh

2:20pm

UNI . . . not good. Purdue is very 'athletic' (and can't swim - hiyo! Insert own joke here!) and UNI is not. Brent is screaming and dancing and breaking things - he's referred to multiple people as "HUGE FUCKS" and he and Troy just each chugged a 24oz Natty Ice. Ahhh, 5.9% alcohol by volume . . . you never did me wrong. It makes me long for the halcyon days of the St. Ides Case O'Forties, "The beer to have when you don't have to remember.

Brent: "We got'em right where we want'em . . . we're gonna get Johnny Fuckface outta the lineup, we're gonna have seven less turnovers . . . that's what's gonna happen." Thanks, Adolph Rupp!

Brent also just referred to the opponent as "Pur-Dookie . . . like poop." Nah, we get it dude.

Troy: Q: "Is there a reason why we're not watching UNI?" A: "They're at halftime? And that one you're watching on the 4-way channel? That's a live look-in at the game we are watching."
Troy: "Oh. That answers that."

So the wheels are well on their way off - Cal is losing to Maryland, which is just fantastic because I'm completely resigned to losing every single game I attempt to cap, like some sort of reverse Midas Touch where every spreadsheet I touch turns into quadriplegic porn or infanticide.

Also Collin has to be ready to punch a clown - UCONN is in shit shape, up 2 with turnovers all over the hell. Ugly like the Horseface Killer (callback joke! Yay!)

1:30pm

Durrr . . . nice morning. The end of the LSU/Butler game was a Benjamin Button-style anti-climax, with a last-chance inbound to cover that resulted in yet another f-ing turnover. Great. That's OK - a lot of people start 0-3. At least Memphis kept the hope alive.

Brent is already going apeshit on the UNI game, and it's 2-2 18:51 in the 1st. Engelseder just made a free throw, which prompted JC to call him "put your Engelseed in my butt" . . . I have no idea.

BYU's loss was so predictable, Jared said that their God has used up "all his power" on Steve Young. So there's that - Mormons can fuck off, at least until the Utah game.

The next action is all over Cal at -1.5 - I have the 'true line' at -3.5, and UMD sucks, so hopefully we're fading the public instead of looking like idiots. Again. Brent said "Gary Williams can get AIDS - I hate him" which led to this exchange:

JC: "Well . . . I guess we all could get AIDS . . . "
RC: "I mean, that kind of requires . . . let's just say you'll need a little help from your wife."

Beer's going down well. Really well. God I hate Mormonism.

12:45pm

Ummmm . . . Memphis is barely hanging on. I have them winning every pool. I just dropped a tire iron onto my dick - that would result in a drunken mess all weekend, since I would officially be rooting for everyone else to fail miserably.

Butler has made a sick run - punctuated by Troy noting that Goose Island 312 Wheat is "better beer than Coors Light." Uh, really? If only that difference were reflected in their respective prices . . . Jesus. I also think filet mignon is better than human feces, and cooked pork is better than trichinosis.

The BYU game is unreal bad - A&M is making the Mormons look like the Washington Generals. On the bright side, BYU just had 5 white guys on the floor (SURPRISE!) and A&M five black guys . . . it looked like Brown v. Board of Education for a minute.

I'm now relying on the Cal Bears to resurrect this session, which is a boner. UNI starts in a few minutes - Brent is a massive UNI homer. Should they be the 12 who wins, he will drink himself into an Ed Kennedy brain tumor. Meanwhile, UCONN's coach is in the hospital - Memphis is now tied, so both might be dead by morning. Totally sweet.

11:50am

So I just got here and drank my 'ceremonial' Mike's Hard Lemonade (because they no longer make Zima - there's a planet where this makes sense, I promise) . . . it went down like anal. Life is easy.

My early action looks like Tara Reid's saggy boob job - A&M has missed exactly one field goal (they're now 11 for 12) and Butler has 10 turnovers in 13 minutes. No shit - they're on pace for more than 35 turnovers. Stab my neck. Mid-majors. Ugly. Teams that rely on "drive and kick" and jump shooting can go insanely cold in new buildings (or against athletic teams) so it's my own damn fault. I did not know Butler started three black guys, though, which makes me feel a little better about them coming back from 9 (really 7 since I'm getting the points.

Troy just invoked the "touched it last" rule on JC . . . I'm kind of glad I missed the morning run, and if I'm alive at 10pm I'll be insanely happy. Awkward bisexuality jokes are flying fast and furious, with Brent comparing Pogs to touching dudes. I don't even get it, which is a bad sign.

Butler is on the 8-foot projection screen, just adding to my embarrassment, while A&M is on the world's largest non-HD television still in existence. The model name is actually Smithsonian. I'm soul-crushed and it's only noon. Should be fun - I'm telecommuting, by the way, so I'm answering the phones and email from the dude-cave. I can't see anything going wrong there.

10:30am

It's basically that time again: Live-blogging our retardation as a result of the NCAA tournament, where multiple dudes shirk all semblance of responsibility for 2 to 4 days and drink until they feel like the sponge on the side of the sink. This is an especially poignant metaphor for me this morning, as I used the last of my soap in the shower, and may well be scrubbing myself with Dawn via that sponge tomorrow morning. Life is good, if not slightly degenerate.

We'll get started in a proper sense in about an hour - I'm sure JC is already three Captain and Diets in, since they drove to Sonic for breakfast (without me; fucks).

After last year's debacle playing off the same Bodog account (whereby I was a moderate winner, but we had an f-ing spreadsheet dedicated to keeping track who was up/down) we instead decided to just do a line/spread pool this year, along with the winner-take-all bracket. My current plays:

Alabama State +3.5 (DERP DERP) -1u

Butler +2.5 2u
BYU -2 4u
Oklahoma State +2 1u
Cal -1 1u (could be more; the 'true line' is like -3.1, but I just don't trust Cal)
Utah +1 4u
USC -2 1u
Binghamton +22.5 2u
Wisconsin +2.5 2u

Oh, and I picked Memphis to win. In every bracket. Go big or go home, am I right? Nope, I am an idiot.