In which the Jays almost succumb to the first of two Booby Trap Games...
My first indication that Tuesday's game was going to have a saucy finish should have come around 6:37 PM CST. Waiting in line for my usual pregame ritual of Chicken Tenders, Fries and Pabst Blue Ribbon, the concessionaire asked me a startling question: would I like to try the new hot wing sauce? Yes, yes I would! As anyone who's seen the latest photos on my Facebook page can attest, I do like the hot wings. Combining my two favorite culinary things during the winter months -- chicken tenders at a Jays game AND hot wing sauce -- well, that's just a dangerous combination. I tore into the opportunity with reckless abandon.
Incidentally, props to the geniuses at the cheap beer stand who made the decision to pull the PBR tap and go back to cans. Cans equal bigger glasses equal a happier stomach for Max Univers. See, back in the first years of the Qwest, the cheap beer stand had PBR, Schlitz, Old Style, Falstaff and Old Milwaukee...two cans for $5. The signage read "Free Beer Tomorrow", although tomorrow never came. Then after a couple of years, the price went to $6 when sales were cutting into the numbers of the more, ahem, mainstream beers. This year, the cans went away, the taps went in, the glasses got smaller (20 oz instead of 24) and the price stayed at $6, although the signage now read "$7", with the 7 crossed out and replaced by a 6. People who don't go to every game ever would think, hey, we're saving a buck! Yay! But I know better. My buddy G. Clarke and I were pleased to see the return both of cans and of larger glasses.
*****
Evansville is a mysterious team. As I wrote yesterday, its hard to figure how they were 15-10 overall and 7-8 in the league. They have fabulous senior leaders, they can shoot, they rebound fairly well. They went into Chapel Hill and gave North Carolina one helluva game on the night Tyler Hansborough became the all-time leading scorer in UNC history. How is this team so...average?
On Tuesday night, they were not average. Both of their senior stars, Shy Ely and Jason Holsinger, got hot on the same night and the Jays were helpless to stop them. At various times, they tried zone, man-to-man, and even a triangle-and-two to stop them. They put Cavel Witter, Justin Carter, P'Allen Stinnett, Antoine Young, Josh Dotzler and Booker Woodfox on Holsinger, and none of them could stop him one-on-one. In the end, the strategy became to simply outscore the Aces, and in that, the Jays succeeded.
Those two players can score in bunches, and anyone surprised by their 56 combined points hasn't been paying attention. Holsinger is the active leader in points scored in the MVC; Ely is the per-game leader this season. Even against good defense, they're going to score. Against a defensive effort lacking in quality, they're going to go off for 30 and 26, respectively.
The 89-84 win won't show up in any coaches highlight films on how to play defense in college basketball, but it was wild to watch and aside from my trip to the Mini Donut Stand at halftime for a Combo Bag (Reserved for Worrisome Outcomes), it might have been the funnest game of the year to watch. That's a hell of a lot of points in a college game, and to have Evansville miss a three to tie with less than 10 seconds left? Followed by an inbounds pass fastbreak dunk to seal the win? 7 ties and 13 lead changes? That sounds like an awesome game, doesn't it? Its hard to think that when everyone in attendance aged two days just by being there, but it was a pretty entertaining game.
Interesting that Rick Hartzell, the former Northern Iowa Athletic Director, was one of the referees working the game. I think Hartzell is a solid individual person and probably a stand-up guy, but perception is 9/10 of the law in politics and refereeing. He shouldn't be assigned to UNI games, certainly, but in a close Valley race its...interesting that he's working not only last night's CU game but the potentially volcanic CU-Illinois State game next weekend. I'll leave it at that.
I loved it when Tom Shatel of the Omaha World-Herald got lustily booed when his commercial for the paper came on the video board. After his poorly timed column last week about the Jays, he deserved the negative auditory feedback.
As for the lady in the halftime shootout wearing a Cornhusker shirt getting booed even more lustily than Shatel? If you want to show up at a Jays game wearing Husker gear, hey, go for it. But know that if you subsequently wind up randomly on the court for a halftime shootout while wearing said shirt, you will be booed so loudly the PA Announcer will be completely drowned out. As long as you're cool with that, more power to ya.
*****
Some fans will no doubt be upset that the Jays played such a close game against an inferior opponent, and those people will claim such nebulous words as "momentum" and "getting on a roll" as reasons to sulk in victory. These people are having a bad day at the brain store. What they're really talking about, in not as many words, are "style points". Style Points are what you rack up in November and December against bad teams. Style Points take a backseat to wins come February and March.
I find it very hard to believe a Jays team who wins out -- giving them 10 wins in a row heading into St. Louis, and a 25-6 record -- would not be in the discussion for an at-large bid. I find it just as hard to believe a team from any school with 27 wins who loses in the championship game of their conference tourney would be left out of the dance, particularly a team from a Top-10 league with wins over Dayton and St. Joseph's. Notice I didn't say they'd get in, I said they'd be in the discussion. Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm say the Jays aren't in the at-large discussion, I say they will be. They might not get in, but to claim they won't be in the discussion at 27-6 having won 12 of their last 13 is asinine.
*****
Tonight's Polyfro Player of the Game is brought to you by The Ministry of Righteous Booing. Just imagine if Monty Python had done a sketch about people booing other people. I can imagine quite a bit, and I imagine that would be pretty dominant. Shatel, Husker Shirt Lady, Referees: you deserved it.
Cavel Witter has had a disappointing year, mostly because the flashes of the sort of player he's capable of being are so tantalizing. Last year down the stretch he was the Jays best scorer. Last night, finally getting comfortable in his new role at the 2 guard, he made some big shots and scored nine consecutive points during the decisive four-minute stretch at the end of the game.
If you thought Tuesday's game would be a "Rocky II Game" -- a game so tight down the stretch that it requires the video clip of Rocky at Adrian's bedside as she tells him to "Win!", followed by a badass training montage -- you're a better soothsayer than I am. And if you figured Witter would be the guy carrying the team to that win, you deserve your own award. Alas, I do not have an award to give you, so you'll have to accept my congrats instead.
You bet.
