ACC/Big Ten Challenge: HYARRRRRR

Sheesh, nothing written since before The Big Game? Can we blame it on Big Game Hangover? Let's do that.

Anywho, the annual pimped-to-the-max "ACC/Big Ten Challenge" has begun in earnest, which caused me to finally realize what was probably obvious to everyone, Buckeye and non-Buckeye alike: BASKETBALL HAS STARTED. Holy shit, what was I paying attention to? I guess it didn't help that the Thad Five (full disclosure: I don't like that nickname. I have no logical reason not to; I mean, it makes sense, it's semi-making fun of Michigan, really, it's got everything you could want. But I don't like it. Sue me) played its first six games either A. not on television, or B. on ONN with no promotion at all and the digital cable claiming that whatever was on in that timeslot was "high school football."

They were finally on TV Friday night against ... *sigh* Youngstown State, so when I watched about 60% of that game out of the corner of my eye at King Avenue 5, I learned essentially nothing about the team. But what I saw seemed to confirm what Todd predicted after catching a few games: I am going to hate watching this team. They don't seem to run any discernible offense, just chucking up threes willy nilly with a drive to the basket thrown in here and there, and most of them are super-handsy on defense. I have total confidence that Thad will coach the latter attribute out of them eventually, but judging by last year's offense, I think the triples are gonna stick around. Hey, if we keep hitting 'em, I guess I'll probably be able to deal with it.

Point is, we're probably gonna learn a helluva lot more about the Young Bucks (hey, that's bett- no, no it isn't) tonight, as they travel to Chapel Hill to take on the Fighting Stuart Scotts and their bastard coach Roy Williams. Even if we lose, I'm gonna turn the game off right away and pretend that in the postgame handshakes Thad headbutted Roy Williams WWE-style. Yeah, lemme just .... yeah...


So, the Challenge. Unsurprisingly, the Big Ten is getting its ass handed to it - again - as the ACC has jumped out to a 4-2 lead after the first two nights of action. Big Ten Wonk has everything you could possibly want to read about the games thus far, which featured the usual number of close losses for the midwesterners. Should have figured we'd never win the damn thing when we lost it the first two years despite having the vastly superior conference each time. Oh well. On the bright side, the Duke/Indiana game yielded the above picture of Duke freshman Jon Scheyer, who's clearly a couple months late on the whole National Talk Like a Pirate Day thing. Or maybe he just fell in with the wrong crowd...