I was talking to a co-worker over IM on Tuesday, and as I am the foremost Creighton Hoops expert within the walls of our office, he wanted to ask me about the Open House. Before you ask, there's only 34 people in our office, so possessing the title of Foremost Expert about Creighton Hoops is not exactly the sort of thing one brags about owning.
I also own the title of Foremost Expert about Jack Welch's Management Techniques, which stems entirely from reading his column on the inside back page of Business Week in the company bathroom. So it goes without saying that these titles are not exactly hard to attain. My goal is to one day become the Foremost Expert on Getting Candy out of the Vending Machine without having the wrapper get caught on the claw inside the machine. Hey, we all gotta have goals, don't judge me because mine are more modest than yours. It will be a great day when I spend 50 cents on a Three Musketeers bar and it doesn't dangle perilously from the metal slinky-like mechanism that dispenses the candy. And frankly, I'm tired of yelling lines from the Kiefer Sutherland version of The Three Musketeers from 1991 every time the candy gets stuck, so this goal needs to be attained ASAP.
Nonetheless, this co-worker wanted to know about the Open House, because he was under the impression it would be a lot like college football "Spring Games". While I agree it would be dominant to see a two-hour "Blue-White Scrimmage", that's not what the Open House is about. Near as I can tell, its about allowing the 500 Super Hard Core Die-Hard Fans to attend a practice. Equally important, its practice for us, too: not just anyone can fork over $6 for a beer without practicing handing over that money. It takes practice so that your game face is ready, and you don't revile in horror when the cashier asks for the money. This is important stuff.
Hearing that the Open House was really just practice, the co-worker replied, "Practice? We're talking about Practice? Practice!" I said, "Oh, are you trying to be clever by dropping an Iverson reference? Yeah, you are not The Answer."
I digress.
***
I had intended on getting to the Open House at 5:30 when it started, but then a confluence of events prevented that from happening. Namely, my furnace crapped out on me, and I had to take two hours out of the middle of my day to meet the repairman at the house to get it fixed. I love Creighton Hoops, but I love not freezing my bits and pieces off even more. Seriously, when you're finally drinking the Colt 45 in cans that has been sitting in the back of the fridge for 19 months since an ill-fated Wii Sports party where one of your idiot friends thought it would be fun to bring Malt Liquor in cans, you know its cold.
I got to the Qwest about 20 to 6, and by the time I made the rounds saying Hi to various people, made a beer run and found a seat, it was 6 o'clock. At first I sat two rows from the top in 104, but then I decided to wander down onto press row because they would never let someone like me down there for an actual game. I was surprised to find that it was difficult to watch a game from there. First of all, the baskets seems GARGANTUAN when you're sitting court-level. I'm short anyway, but the baskets seemed like they were 15 feet in the air. Secondly, the players not playing stood right in front of me, blocking my view of pretty much anything awesome that was happening. Although I did get the backstory on several of the players' tatts during casual conversations when the coaches weren't looking. So there is that.
As for the action on the court, well, here's some completely random things that I jotted down in my Jacksons Victory notebook, which I made myself from the cover of the original LP:
Kenny Lawson is huge. Mr. T huge. One of the guys I bumped into in the concourse told me he thought it looked like Lawson had received shoulder transplants. While that's patently absurd, he is quite a bit bigger. Whether that translates into clearing space in the paint and grabbing every rebound he can, or not, remains one of the biggest question marks surrounding this team. But I like what I saw.
Justin Carter is everything we've been led to believe. A 6'4" guard-small-forward hybrid with a football players' body and mentality. He looks and plays like someone SIU normally recruits -- and that's a compliment. The Jays have had athletes, but they need someone to be tough and aggressive. His mammoth blocked shot during one of the drills was the highlight of the night. His hustle play to knock free a loose ball on a fast break earned him one of the only standing ovations from the crowd. I know its only practice, but between what we've read of him all summer, and what I saw last night...lets just say my excitement level for where this team can go went up about 25%.
Two of the better players from last year, Cavel Witter and Booker Woodfox, were practically invisible. This is a good thing. Everyone knows they can play, so if they're being overshadowed by others, that speaks to the incredible depth of talent on this team.
Josh Dotzler looks to be finally back in form after two injury-plagued years, and is back in "Coach on the floor" mode. I'll be curious to see him against other teams, but it looks like his quickness is back, his confidence in his shot is back, and he wasn't dribbling into turnovers. As one of the guys sitting behind me yelled out as I was leaving, if Dotzler can manage to make just one out of every three jumpers he takes, this team might well be unstoppable.
As I said, its hard to gauge much from one practice, so I'll be most curious to see the team take on actual competition. If only that "exhibition" against Iowa State was open to the public...
On second thought, seeing both Helmut Hair AND The Wookie back in Omaha in a two-week span to play the Jays might cause a rift in the time-space continuum and cause me to lose sleep over the impending doom of Y2K. So yeah...maybe its for the best to keep the doors locked on that Iowa State exhibition.
You bet.
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