I consider myself a pretty avid college basketball fan. Everyone obsesses over college football September
through November, and I get into it my fair share, but in reality I'm just waiting for the middle of November to start so
I can follow my favorite sport, which is men's college basketball.
(A little aside here: can we agree on an abbreviation
for college hoops? CBB doesn't do much for me, but then again neither does NCAAM, NCB (what does this stand for?) or NCAAB.
I don't know what to propose in its stead, but I will say this: I am so tired of seeing women's scores on the "Bottom Line."
The next time I look and my heart skips a beat seeing some ridiculous result like Baylor knocking off Kansas, only to see
that it's a women's score and not a real score, I'm gonna have to bitch-slap madd hoes and it won't be pretty. Women's college
basketball is perhaps the least-watchable sport on TV today, next to any and all sports that involve gasoline. Here's a simple
equation to convert a men's college basketball game to a women's college basketball game.
W =
M - (f + r + b + s + w)
where...
- W is a women's basketball game,
- M is a men's basketball game,
- f is finesse,
- r is rhythm,
- b is ball handling,
- s is shooting without looking like the ball weighs 22 pounds and
- w is watchability.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Gotta close these parentheses.) So, being an avid college
basketball fan, I was cruising the stats section of the Worldwide Leader's college hoops page and found an interesting statistical
leader: in the category of team scoring, the top five rounds up as follows:
5. Houston - 91.3 points per game,
4.
New Mexico - 91.8
3. Campbell - 92.3
2. Arizona - 94.8
No surprises there. Some weird teams get on that list--is
Phi Slamma Jamma back at Houston?--but it's early in the year, teams are playing some real tomato cans, probably some D-II
and NAIA teams too, and they tend to run up the score. Arizona, my preseason national title pick, has a high-flying offense
and has bounced back nicely from an ugly loss at Virginia to start the season. But then you get to number one...
1.
Virginia Military - 105.6 PPG
Whoa. I mean, it's not that unusual to see a team score 100 points, but to be
averaging
over 100 this far into the season? More than ten points more than the NEXT highest-scoring team? I had to look into this.
There's no way that VMI is scoring 106 a game... is there? As I clicked on their team link, I began to imagine how VMI could
actually be averaging over 100. They've probably only played like one game and ran the score up that game, I thought. But
then again... one game where they scored 105.6 points? Unlikely. To get a weird decimal average like that, they must have
played at least three games. Could this be a typo? When the VMI team page finally loaded, I could not believe my eyes. It
definitely wasn't a typo. I knew that I had stumbled upon the craziest sports story of the year that NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT.
On
ESPN's team pages, they always have the team's most recent game score posted front and center. On VMI's page, the featured
score was a 116-111 loss at the hands of Howard. 227 total points? Are you kidding me? Scores like that are pretty much unheard
of since short shorts were en vogue. Imagine the pace of this game: a full-court press every single possession? I see a score
like that and I don't know if it's college hoops or one of my brother's NBA Live 05 games, where he turns off fouls, steals
the ball and then kicks the rock out to Tracy McGrady for a three, every single possession. In any case, VMI put up a buck
eleven in that game and managed to LOSE to Howard--the same Howard team that only put up 39 points in a loss a week earlier
against Cincy! My eyes widened even further as I continued scanning the page: on November 22, the Keydets only managed a paltry
87 in a loss to James Madison (who posted 89), but going back even further, they beat South Dakota State 104-89, downed South
Virginia
144-127 and they nipped VA Intermont
156-95! ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-SIX POINTS. AMERICA,
ARE YOU SERIOUS?! How have we not heard about this?! I don't care if they were playing against the Oswego Middle School modified
"B" team, 156 points in a college basketball game is absurd!
In that game, VMI was strong from end to end, scoring
78 points in each half. Talk about consistency! The Keydets sank 60 field goals, including 21 three-pointers. Reggie Williams
led the squad with 45 points--just 29% of his team's points, so you know they had a pretty balanced attack. Williams also
led the team with eight rebounds. Doesn't sound like too many rebounds, but consider that it's hard to rebound when you don't
miss any shots, ever. After seeing this game's box score and reading its recap, I giddily clicked over to the other game,
the 144-127 defensive dogfight victory over South Virginia. The Keydets started out slowly, leading only 54-35 at the half.
Then it all fell apart for the vaunted Keydet defense. SVA actually outscored VMI in the second half, 92-90. Fortunately,
the first half cushion proved to be enough to preserve the lead, and VMI coasted to victory, content to trade baskets in the
second period. (Trade baskets? They were probably just running a lay-up drill for 20 minutes!)
This team, this VMI
team... I just have to ask, first of all, what the hell is going on? I think these guys have to be doing SOMETHING very different
than everybody else. Are these games even sanctioned by the NCAA? Maybe they're playing 45-minute halves or something, including
stoppage time. Or maybe they're using backyard rules, keeping possession after a score. How else can you possibly score 90
points in a half? AND give up 92 in the SAME half? 90 points over 20 minutes is four and a half points a minute, and that
pace was kept for both teams! Don't you have to miss sometime?! VMI must have simultaneously the best offense and worst defense
in recorded civilization. Either that, or they're just letting their opponents score every trip down the court so they can
get the ball back and try to score themselves because, let's face it, defense is boring!
Or maybe these guys are using
the "Hot Spots" from College Slam for Super Nintendo. I think it's a very real possibility. Hot Spots, for the uneducated
reader, are random circles that, from time to time, appear on the court during the course of a game. If you make a field goal
standing from that spot, you earn the number of points shown in the circle, four through nine. I would love to flip on the
VMI Radio Network and hear Brett Bretterson with the call during the South Virginia game... "Reggie Williams, pull-up jumper
for nine... IT'S GOOD! IT'S GOOD AND THE FOUL! REGGIE WILLIAMS WILL HEAD TO THE LINE TO TRY TO COMPLETE A RARE TEN-POINT PLAY!"
(Or,
as the Voice of the Orange Matt Park would call it...
Matt: "Reggie Williams wants nine-- GIVE HIM NINE!"
Gene Waldron:
"Matt, Terrence Roberts really has to get his hands up on that play and be uh-gressive...")
VMI's coaches must have
hit the options menu before play began and turned the competition level down from All-Pro to Rookie. (There's actually some
truth in that, because VMI had some big games against non-NCAA Division I opponents VA Intermont and South Virginia, as well
as Division I independent South Dakota State.) Or maybe they recruited the whole Pleasantville High School basketball team.
You remember-- the team from the movie where nobody ever missed a shot. Ever? That team. At least one of those guys has to
be suiting up for VMI. Maybe Teen Wolf, too. Also, is Michael's Secret Stuff a banned substance? Because I can imagine these
guys going through cases of it before every game. How else can you play 20 minutes of basketball then go out again and, oh,
nothing special, just drop a cool 90 spot? Even the Toon Squad in Space Jam couldn't score 90 points in a half.
The
most disturbing part of all this is the fact that, despite their 106 points per game and their record-breaking performances,
the poor Keydets own a 3-4 record. They aren't even considered the best team in their own Big South conference; that honor
belongs to preseason favorite Winthrop, who very nearly knocked off Tennessee as a 15 seed last March. I don't have access
to such statistics, but if there were ever another team in history that was under .500 seven games in and was still averaging
over 100 a game, I would eat my hat. And by my hat, I mean a delicious ham sandwich. I guess the ability to average over 100
points and still possess a losing record proves the old adage, "defense wins championships." Maybe that's true, but defense
doesn't get you 156 points in a game and make you look completely badass in the process.
Still, come conference tourney
time, I will be rooting for VMI out of the Big South, and I guarantee I will follow this team for the rest of the year. Look
out for them, and know you heard it here first when they do big things a la Humsi and Hodge. Think about what they could accomplish
if they wanted to. Coming up, they play at Army, then back-to-back games at home against non-NCAA school Lees McCree. (Doesn't
that sound like a bad folk singer?) Could these guys score 200 in a game? 100 in a half seems doable; if they were able to
put up 90 once, why not do it twice in a game? I would love to see VMI in an exhibition against the Washington Generals, the
Jabberjaw/Harlem Globetrotters All-Star Team, or even the Knicks! The possibilities are endless, and if these guys somehow
win the Big South and make it to the NCAA Tourney, I am picking them to win in the first round. I don't care who they play.
Even if they play my title pick, Arizona, I'll still take them in an upset. I mean, you have to. Stats don't lie: VMI scores
106 a game to Arizona's 94. It's a no-brainer. And maybe these guys won't win a national title--they struggle pretty badly
against legitimate competition, hence the four losses--but I'd still feel pretty good if they went to defend our country.
God
Bless America.
