A Lion Born Lame, Held In Destiny's Hand

I find it hard to describe how much I love Sundiata Gaines. He's been, for years, one of the best players in the SEC - and one of the most underrated, within the conference and nationally. He's the "scrappy" kind of player that white people love, except that, oddly, he's not white. He's a great passer, not very athletic, and is hard-nosed, whatever that means - I think it means he fouls a lot. In fact, he may be the first player in tournament history to foul out of two games in one day, but we'll see. (Edit: Yep.) Apart from that, his biggest problem is that he plays for Georgia. And, frankly, Georgia is not all that good.

A common occurence, in Georgia games, is to see Sundiata drop a no-look, seemingly impossible, perfect pass to a teammate that has no idea what to do with it. The Bulldogs are just not very talented. It's probably a recruitment problem, but whatever the reason, they're not good. That's probably why Sundiata is so underrated; nobody pays attention to good players on bad teams, unless they're Michael Beasley. But in Sundiata's case, I think this deep run into the tournament - deepening as I type - may change that.

So, now that Florida's out and Tennessee got upset, I'm rooting for Georgia. Because, frankly, I dislike the rest of the SEC. I don't know why I like Tennessee and UGA, but despise Ole Miss, LSU, and Vanderbilt. (Well, no, I know why I hate Vanderbilt - they're a bunch of assholes, that's why.) I'm probably a bad fan in that way, that the teams I like after my favorite are my favorite's biggest rivals. I've liked Tennessee since the year before last, and watched them often. Bruce Pearl is a pimp and I like the way they wear their headbands. One of my favorite moments from last season was the UT/OSU game - watching Greg Oden guard Wayne Chism was like being witness to a humorous child molestation.

On a different note, one of the most interesting things about the postseason, I think, is the way minor players move themselves into the limelight. It happens at all stages of the game - Daniel Gibson, anyone? In this game, for example, Sundiata fouled out with more than seven minutes left in the game, and the other guard, Billy Humphrey, had to pick up the slack. I'm sure few people have ever heard of Billy Humphrey; I know I never have. But with UGA playing in the championship game as a six seed, and with Sundiata likely to foul his fouly self out foul again (foul) - kid's going to get national attention. I wonder why such things happen every year? It's a matter worthy of its own post. (That code for "I'm lazy".)

Did Vanderbilt get eliminated yet? I hope so. Jerks.

Thought Is Degraded Action

I first watched this Stanford team last year, in a game with Washington State. I was watching Washington State because I was in love with Derrick Low. I forget, now, why I first watched Wazzu - I think it was when they were playing Vanderbilt. Whatever reason, they quickly became one of my favorite teams. And, later, Stanford became another.

I like teams because of their players, mostly, with a few exceptions. I like Virginia Tech because of Deron Washington. I like Stanford because of the Lopez twins. And, at first, I liked Washington State because of Derrick Low. But then I watched them play, and became engrossed with the team as a whole. Kyle Weaver. Robbie Cowgill. Taylor Rochestie. Their coach, Tony Bennet. The little backup point that looks like Snoop from The Wire. Even big, foul-y Aron Baynes. My Gator Boys were still playing, so they weren't my favorite team, but they were close. And now that they're gone, Wazzu has taken their place, as my emotional favorite team, if not the one I'd always root for.

But I can't underplay how much I dig Stanford, either. I was taken with Brook and Robin - not what they looked like, or how they played, at least not at first, but by their very existence. Seven foot tall Puerto Rican twins with girls' names? How awesome is that? But then I realized that they, and Derrick Low, were being hyped all over the place. So I figured I might as well check out how they played. And, well, damn. They deserved the hype.

Right now, though, Washington State is playing Stanford, and Stanford just cut the lead from 13 to 2. They are, of course, doing so on the backs of Brook and Robin. As far as I can tell, Brook is the stronger of the two, basketball-wise. He has better numbers and plays more minutes. But if I were the coach of Stanford, I'd be really ugly. No, I mean, if I were the coach of Stanford, I'd play them at the same time as often as I could. And not just because I enjoy watching them play volleyball with the basketball - because with that much size, I see no reason why Stanford can't be at least a Sweet Sixteen team. If all you need is size and skill, then Stanford has it in spades, no matter what the rest of the team looks like. And the rest of the team looks pretty good.

On the flip side is Washington State. Wazzu is not a big team. They've got two big white guys, Baynes stiff and Cowgill not, and Kyle Weaver, who is not very big at all. Yet, with Derrick Low doing his best Steve Nash impression, they don't really need the size. What they need is to not be in the PAC-10, because this is some ACC shit right here. As I'm watching them lose, though, I think they also need more mental toughness. Because they missed ten straight field goals in the last seven minutes, and that's just pretty much reprehensible. All that Stanford did to win that game was to play.

And the Gators lost to Mississippi State. Is it tournament time yet?

But World Enough, And Time

I hadn't known there was a game on this evening. I flipped past, then to it, delighted - the Rockets, hosting the post-trade Bulls. The same Bulls, the announcers informed me, that were now the youngest team in the league. They lost - of course they did - but they made me happy just the same; there was a certain absurdity to them, a kind of hopeful incompetency, that was in many ways exhilarating.

What struck me about the game, what made me want to sit and watch, was the Bulls' new starting lineup - Kirk and, I believe, Duh in the frontcourt, and Noah at center, Thomas at power forward, and Sefolosha at small forward. Was it real? Were they just fucking with me? I couldn't believe that they would really start Tyrus, Thabo and Joakim - especially not all at the same time. It just made too much sense to do so and, as we are all aware, a certain kind of coach is known to not see that kind of sense. But I suppose circumstances forced the hands involved, and the three most talented players played. It was, truly, a water-shed moment.

The Bulls were young and exciting last year too, as I recall. Working late, bored at my job in the evenings, I would watch whatever game was on - I even watched baseball in the summer - and I fell in love, a little bit, with those scrappy, homely Bulls. To watch them now reminds me of how it felt to watch them then, before the horrific start to the season, before the ludicrously undermet expectations, before the spreading cancer in the locker room and on the floor. No - they played, at least at the beginning, as if they were happy. As if, maybe, they enjoyed the game of basketball; as if they felt like what they were, a bunch of freakishly talented kids getting paid to play a game. The fact that their talent arises directly from their youth only exacerbates the excitement; one can feel the expectation returning.

They lost to the burning-hot Rockets. They're a young team and they made young mistakes, and no one, least of all me, expected them to win. But their play made me feel that hope may yet return in Chicago - and made me certain that my predictions will hold true. They're not world-burners, yet. They may not win anything of note, but they will be better than they are; they will even, indeed, be good. They may be great one day. Their youth inspires, and, suddenly, being a Chicago Bulls fan doesn't feel like such a humiliating proposition anymore.