The tricky thing
about doing these running diaries is that whenever I cover sports events in
person, I have a terrible tendency to compromise the actual article for my own
fan experience. I want to cheer. I want to go crazy. I want to be in the
student section. I want to lose my voice the next day and have everyone assume
I am sick and then continue to find excuses throughout our conversations to
stop talking to me so they can presumably go take a cleaner breath of oxygen
somewhere else (that is how it works . . . right?).
My point is, in
this running diary, which covers the Northwestern basketball game Sunday
against the visiting #2 Indiana Hoosiers, there are huge gaps of time between
blurbs, and these are mostly because I was busy telling some Indiana player to
quit being such a little bitch about a foul call or yelling at Olah to take a
shot for the love of Christ. We can talk about that later, though. Excuse the
time gaps—bottom line.
I think this going
to go well, how about you guys?
Here we go, NU
hoops hosting #2 Indiana. Let’s see what kinds of crazy go down this time.
11:58—The
Indiana warm-ups, as noted by the student section here in Welsh-Ryan Arena,
look a lot like bowling shirts over pajama bottoms. Maybe more like Willy Wonka’s
nightwear mixed with Waldo’s or the mustached guy from Monopoly. You be the
judge.
11:59—So in
case you are not too familiar with college hoops, Indiana has a star forward
named Cody Zeller, who happens to be one of the top projected picks in the next
NBA draft. He is a pretty big deal. His nickname is also The Big Handsome,
which is unfortunate for him, because he is anything but. Look at him. He looks
forty, does he not? Like a white version of Greg Oden. You can just imagine him
being a top five pick and then blowing out his knee ten games into the season.
Yikes. This is morbid. Anyway, I digress—it is game time.
12:05—The whole
student section simultaneously jumping up and down in unison really makes me
wish we had more fans . . . what a shame.
12:07—Ladies and
gentlemen, Jared Swopshire of your Northwestern Wildcats wins the opening tip
against Cody Zeller! Wow! The fans are already going nuts. This is going to be
a good one.
12:10—Three minutes
into the action and Zeller misses his first three shots. The fans immediately
take the opportunity to tell him that he sucks and that he will never make it
in the NBA, and that he should have fun playing for the godforsaken Bobcats. I
am loving this. The guy genuinely seems like a decent human being and we are
all standing there telling him that his career will be one massive failure
because he chose somewhere else to receive an education. Man, I love sports.
12:13—Zeller is
fouled and immediately goes to talk to his coach about how to take a freaking
foul shot. You stand behind the line and put the ball through the ring, you
freaking circus act.
Was that cold? That was cold. Sorry.
12:16—Indiana
calls a timeout. Seriously?
12:21—Indiana
fouls again, but this time it is some douchebag named Will Sheehey wearing the
number zero jersey. General rule: if you wear the number zero during your
sports career, you need to figure out your life. Case in point: Gilbert Arenas
wore the number zero and he brought to a gun into his locker room. Thank you
and continue to the next window.
12:24—Over on
the Northwestern offensive end I notice that some little punk kid is in charge
of mopping up all the sweat in the paint. He does a piss-poor job. He totally
half-asses it. Right there is why we are losing—some dumb six-year-old is over there
in the middle of our side of the court doing a crappy job of mopping up the
sweat. Ugh, I hope they are not paying him anything.
12:29—Much to
my sheer delight, Indiana’s number zero air-balls a three-pointer. Whataguy. He
will probably go far one day.
12:30—A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, leans back from the row in front of me and says the following, “If we
dunk in this game, I will abstain from sex for a week.”
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Northwestern University!
12:34—Zero is
called for goal-tending. Lord, he sucks.
12:35—Speak of
the devil, Zero goes down the other end, drives to the lane, crashes into a
Wildcat, lands on his feet, promptly pretends to be fouled, spins, does a flip
or some shit like that, crashes to the ground, flails wildly like some sort of
weird mudfish, and yells for a call. The ref comes up, literally leans down to
look into his eyes, blows his whistle right in his ear, and calls charging. No basket,
Northwestern ball.
Man, I love sports.
12:43—Well,
we have been here for more than half an hour and the ‘Cats have yet to break
ten points. Olah needs to jack up a shot. Honestly, if Olah took a three on every single possession and we lost, I do not
think anyone would care.
12:46—My buddy
Ben, a future sports journalist, proclaims loudly, “Indiana’s going to be tough
to beat this year.”
12:49—As the
ball goes out to Swopshire in the corner, I realize that I become instantly
on-edge every time he has the ball. I just have no idea what to expect. He could do a crazy dunk, he could take a difficult shot, or he could pull something weird out of his ever-growing fro. Classic sign of Northwestern hoops right
there. Except the fro part. We do not have many of those.
12:52—Zero comes
back into the game to talk to the ref, probably to try and try some weird
behind-the-scenes bribery stuff. I hate that guy.
12:54—We cut
to halftime. Sitting in the stands, I realize the show is going to involve
young girls. This seems to be an odd trend in basketball games I attend, and
yeah, it disturbs the hell out of me. This even happened during high school.
Unbelieva—WAIT, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!
12:59—Throughout
the entire phenomenon, we debate everything from who choreographs these sort of
routines to how one actually chooses to follow this activity, but one thing was
never debated: that this whole thing is a sport. Absolutely. Gosh, did you see
the human jumprope?! Look that up.
1:07—During second-half
warm-ups, I notice that Aaron Liberman has a kippah made by Under Armour. I had
no idea this was a thing. I am blown away. Nike has them too. Wow, just wow. It
needed to be said.
1:15—Number Zero
enters the game toward the beginning of the half and promptly fouls somebody.
At this point I am just saying it to say it. He does not even dignify further
coverage.
1:28—Number 32
on Indiana check into the game, and based on the reaction from the (huge number
of) Hoosiers fans, he is a fan favorite. He also looks like a convict—like Indiana
has to pay his bail each week to play basketball and after every game he goes
straight back to the can. I am afraid of him.
1:34—Some Indiana
player is poked in the eye and goes over to the ref in dramatic response. Instead
of sending him to the damn bench like a normal ref, the official puts his arm
around him and probably tells him to stop crying and that everything would be
okay. This game just sucks.
1:35—Swopshire
dunks the ball on a fast-break steal, and abstinence was enjoyed by all!
1:40—Zero fouls
again. There was much rejoicing!
1:43—A ‘Cats
three is followed by a block at the other end! We are within eight points of
second-ranked Indiana! The student sections are going nuts! Indiana calls a
timeout!
During the timeout itself, Indiana brings special red chairs
out onto the court so the payers do not have to walk the extra three feet to
the bench. How can anyone look at that and not think it is anything except
pathetic? Ugh, Indiana is really dang weird.
1:45—Zeller misses
a dunk, and Olah finishes on our end! We are within six! Excuse me while I go
crazy for thirteen minutes!
1:58—It is a
five-point game now! There are two minutes and thirty seconds to go!
Gaaaaaaahh! This could be legendary!
2:13—Game over.
We lost. Son of a bitch.
Things really were
insane at the end there, sorry guys—definitely some jumps in time going on. At
some point, one of the cameramen had to come on to the floor where our offense
was trying to do work, and he had to mop
up the sweat because the little punk who was supposed to do it was not doing
it! The ref pointed out the sweat! He had to stop the game to point out the
excess of sweat on the ground, where we were trying to win a basketball game!
This was
unacceptable, but either way, you have to be proud of how our ‘Cats played
against Indiana. No one expected it to be this close at all, and would you
believe it, we made it a pretty good game down the stretch. Sure, were there
some issues with sweat-mopping? Yes. Was the halftime jump-rope spectacle at
times more athletic than what we saw on the court? Indeed. No matter though,
because we saw our Wildcats play a solid game against a good team. I am proud of our guys out there, and I know that sometimes these articles can be tough on the
We also learned to
never ever wear the number zero . . . hold on, do you guys know if anyone on
our team wears zero on his jersey?
Let me check. Hold
on.
Omar Jimenez. Oh
no.
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