Crazy basketball Index

It's not college and its not football, but Alaska has no college football and an overabundance of Crazy in its basketball legacy, so it will always have a place on the Index.

To recap some of Crazy's high school basketball accomplishments that have been chronicled here:

1 - a few years back (04?), the Barrow high school girls played for and won the State championship against a team from Juneau. THe game was played the same day as 16 games in the NCAA tournament's first-round. Of those 16 games, only 3 matched opponents from campuses farther apart than the Barrow-Juneau title game.

2 - Mario Chalmers, NCAA Final Four MVP and now NBA player, balled at Service High in Alaska, which you may have known. You may not have known that, from Chalmer's sophomore-year team at Service, Chalmers was the third guy to play in the Show. Two players who were seniors that year went on to make NFL rosters.

3 - UAA, my alma mater dear, made the DII Final Four last year and in '06 scored 8 points in the final 12 seconds to beat somebody at home.

Which brings us to...

http://www.adn.com/sports/prep/basketball/boys/story/702900.html

so this story features:

Tok - if not the heart of Crazy, then at least the Gateway to Crazy.
Central players named Skylar and Cronk.
THe two highest point totals ever recorded by a single player in a game in Alaska - 20 years apart, from adjacent fly-speck towns on the Canadian border, with the previous record holder sitting in the stands as the new guy broke his record.

74: Points scored by Skylar Webb for Tok High this year, breaking a 20+ year old Alaska state record, against a team from Whitehorse, which is in Canada and 400 miles from Tok.

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400: Miles - roughly

• Boston to Baltimore
• Palo Alto to Laguna Beach
  
• Dallas to Austin to Houston
• the total distance traveled by UNC's basketball team to play Duke since 1988.***
  View Larger Map
  

By reputation, Tok is the first "town" you hit inside Alaska after crossing over from Canada.

62: Previous record, held by Mike Cronk, of Northway High, a school actually closer to Canada, but without the big city glam of Tok.
1: Rows behind Webb's family that Cronk, now a teacher at Tok, was sitting for the game.
1:30: Total minutes Webb played in the fourth quarter after picking up his 4th foul late in the 3rd.
59: Webb point total at end of regulation.
15: Points in overtime.
38: Winning margin in Northway game when Cronk set the record.
1: Winning margin in Tok game, 83-82 - for Whitehorse.

So Webb scored the most points ever by a high schooler in Alaska, 74, and lost.

*** - regular season

T is for Tom Osborne's Face

"Hello?"

- Orange Bowl Guy

Hand it to OU fans - they treat their program's YouTube memories like a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The more akward, the more embarrassing, the more pathetic and debasing, the better.

There are at least three videos available on the 1985 Orange Bowl (including a recent Sunday Sermon here) where the Sooners lost to UW after thier horse-and-wagon cost them a field goal.

And here, preserved by Lucky4OU / Jim's Oklahoma Sports Page, is another great moment in football akwardness.

In 1978, the Tom Osborne-led Husker upset #1 OU, with Hiesman winner Billy Sims, in their annual showdown, handing the Huskers the automatic Orange bid for the Big 8, and a showdown for the national title with Penn State. However, NU fell asleep at the wheel the next week losing to Missouri. This sent Penn State to the Sugar Bowl to Face Alabama for #1.

The Orange Bowl then turned around and offered the 'at-large' bid to... OU, setting up a rematch.

The Orange Bowl commissioner - just as General-Buck-Turgeson-straight as a 1978 Orange Bowl Committee chair could possibly be - called OU first to extend the bid and then Nebraska to break the news.

For some reason, and somehow, both ends of both calls were captured on video.

Watch Tom Osborne - every inch as young, dapper and shiny as RFK - react to the news.

OU beat the Husker in the 1979 Orange Bowl, 31-24.

S is for Stanford and the SEC. The other ones

As Sheen said to Biehn, "T rust me with your life but not your money or your wife," and there's indeed no one I'd more gladly hand over the keys to my terrestrial days and nights than Sir Allen Stanford, Brigand Lord of The West Indi es!

Sir Stanford, before the fall.

Equally, there's no one I'd trus t less with anything I actually owned or held dear, as the SEC (subpeonas-and-jail-SEC, not beer-and-sundresses-SEC) is currently discovering, though apparently they could have just asked the English national cricket team.

Here's Uncle Allen with their WAGs (wives and girlfriends, one of them pregnant), as the players toiled below on both Uncle Allen's dime and private Antigua cricket field. Better still, the game in question is the finals of the Stanford 20/20 tournament last November, in which the "Stanford Super sta rs" of Caribbean players beat the English team in a game for a $20 mi llion purse, which is approxi mately 458 zillion shilling-crumpets.

So his team beat them for $20 mil, made a mockery of their sport and generally played Good-to-be-The-King with their wives.






UPDATE: This came after Stanford announced the match by showing up at Lord's field in London in a helicopter, carrying a briefcase of American cash.

But once a Brigand Lord of the West Indies finds his taste for sponsored ladies, he soon aspires beyond churched-up cricket groupies.

And so it caem to be that Stanford Financial became the corporate sponsor of the cheerleading teams of the beer-and-sundresses-SEC's two most celebrated bella ambiente universitarios, LSU.... (check out the 'dismount' of the Tiger Cage, a minute or so in)





and Ole Miss, where the pool parties don't quit.



Sir Allen Stanford, Brigand Lord of the West Indies, most certainly not a descendent of Leland Stanford Jr., ne'er-do-well of SEC cheerleading pool parties and owner of a glorious P-bandit mustache, The Index salutes you!

"I said to my English colleagues that these Texan chaps are a bit different from the average person in Tunbridge Wells, Kent."

- Simon Dyson, executive chairman of the Cricket Foundation

R is for Rey'n'Erin

One part stalking sociopath wraith, one part chemise-sweatered kitten bait, together were 2008's Clearest-Metaphor Couple, their forbidden love a Karmic portrait of what SC would have done to Florida.

Q is for Quentin CoryAAAAAHHHH I JUST THREW UP MY SOUL IN MY MOUTH!!!!!

New Favorite Derelict Blog (link)

P is for Poker face

I know this guy. Or rather, I know my wife, my wife used to run with a self-described Valdosta-based 'hippie-redneck' who I'll call Preston, and Preston knows this guy pretty well. I've met this guy twice, and we'll call him - in a close approximation of his nickname - Lil' Lee.

Now, if you know Preston - and a shocking number of people around Valdosta seem to - then you know there are three things Preston loves, and two are UGA football (the other is filled on a rotating basis by a predictable list of "hippie" and "redneck" pursuits).

Now Lil' Lee shares Preston's devotion to the Dawgs, but also, it turns out, can play some poker. Well enough, apparently, to have finished about 50th at the last World Series of Poker, earning $150,000.

And this is his gameday uniform. Pay special attention to the lenses.

The Strange Judgement Index

5: "Minor" NCAA violations committed in last month by new head coaches whose previous college ooaching job was as USC O-Coordinators (Lane Kiffin 3, Steve Sarkasian 2)

17: Years in Kirk Ferentz contracted Iowa career - 10 to date, 7 in new contract extension signed last week.
12: Ferentz Games-over-.500 to date.
6: Ferentz game-over-.500 against Big 10
3-9: Ferentz vs Michigan and Ohio State
5-5: Ferentz vs Wisconsin
3: Finishes in Top 20 - 8, 8, 20
7: Ferentz bowl games
5: Bowls In Florida
0: Pasadena

2: Consecutive years in which MIchigan's starting quarterback has transfered - Ryan Mallet in 08, and Steven Threet this week.
2, 9: National Rank of those two players among QBs in the 2007 high school class (#1: Jimmy Clausen, 8-6 as a starter at ND)
97: Yards in TD pass thrown by Mallet to Mario Manningham in 2007, longest in MIchigan history, unquestionably the highlight moment of the Mallet-Threet Era.
3: Minimum number of schools Threet will have attended, having transferred to Michigan from Georgia Tech.

Your Sunday Sermon

It was 1980 in Jacksonville, FL and UGA trailed Florida by 1 with 90 seconds and 92 yards to go. That's when QB Buck Beleu (Buck Beleu!) hit Lindsey Scott over the middle and evoked a call from Larry Munson that is the aria of its kind.

We'll pick back up the pace with P, Q, R, S and T this week.

An H Update: Hitler hates South Carolina!

O is for Offensive Line. As in, your WHOLE Offensive Line.

It's Western Kentucky, its late in the game but its still Alabama's Terrence Cody taking on a triple-team and still making the play.

Your Sunday Sermon

Barry Switzer reacts to the Sooner Schooner running onto the Orange Bowl at the wrong time, costing OU three points - and the lead - against Washington in 1985.



Early in the 4th, OU kicked a FG to go up 17-14 on Washington, prompting the Sooner Schooner crew to charge onto the field.

However, a penalty had been called on the kick, moving OU back. When the Schooner arrived, nearly knocking over several players, and then got stuck in the Orange Bowl mud, it bought OU a second penalty for 15 yards.

Then #2, OU likely would have been #1 in at least one of the polls with a win over 10-1, #4 Washington. But after the penalty, Washington blocked the re-kick, and soon after rolled off 14 points in 60 seconds to take control of the game.

A fantastic retelling of the game from the Seattle Times for UW's 2006 game at OU is here, including this picture of the moment.

H Update: Hitler hates UVA!

N is for the Natchitoches Travelin' Pants-Shittin' Show!

Or, THE WORST F'IN FOOTBALL GAME EVER PLAYED
and Neil Diamond, besides

College Football is a recurring national Revival of local carnival barkers, traveling freak wagons and whistle-stop circus shows that thrill us and move on.

Some of what we see is Great and lingers in legend. Much is, as it must be, average, and some is dull and stagnant.

But occasionally one of College Football's circuses careens from "Thrilling" to "Grotesque."

This is such a time.

Specifically, this is the 3rd quarter performance of the Northwestern State (La.) Demons in their 2004 game at Nicholls State. Or, in honor of NWSU's deep-bayou hometown, the Index presents:

The Natchitoches Travelin' Pants-Shittin' Show

Thanks to Y2Hood, a Nicholls State student who preserved these staggering four clips of football sorriness. Like a lost recording of Enrico Caruso or the Zapruder film, the tape is grainy and static-filled, but its power to mesmerize is full 1080p.

The game itself was at Nicholls State, which is in Thibodaux, La. a crossroads town best imagined as the bullseye-center of the hurricane-buffer bayou southwest of New Orleans, whose main industries are heat, flies and shrimp-boat solvent.

Natchitoches, home to NWSU, sits far to the north in the state's rainforest interior, just east of the better-known Texas city of Nacodoches, with which it shares two traits: each town claims to be the oldest in their respective state, and both bear names rooted in grand Creole defiance of spoken English.

Though spelled nearly alike, Nacodoches is pronounced, roughly, "Nac-ah-DOE-shus" vs. Natchitoches, which is"NACK-ah-tush."

Little was at stake that night in Thibodaux, as both teams headed towards .500ish seasons, with Nicholls the favorite, and ahead 17-14 at the half. But in the middle of the third, the Demons offense came to the line on the Nichols 37.

And from the nearby canvas tent erected before the game, a gospel piano began to peel into the Louisianna night.....

Thhhhhhhhiiiiiii-Bodaux night,
with the Demons in town
and the grass on the ground smellin'
.... sweet...

Mooooove up the road
to the Stadium's gate
c'est chez Nicholls State
gettin'..... beat...

Sits a ragged team
Backed up to its goal.
And now its third-down,
With sixty-one to go!




Its Natch- rhymes with "whack"! - the Natchitoches Travelin' Pants-Shittin' Show!
(Halleja! Halleja!)
Pack up the babies
and give up a safety!
and drop easy throws!
Even wideouts are slow
In "Nack-a-tush's" Show.

Paaaassss..... on first down
and the ball's on a rope
he's alone as the Pope-
...incomplete...

Mooooovvveee.... on the line
and you do it two times
and they walk off the Dime
....gettin'... deep

Then the snap goes high!
From a shotgun call!
Why not give a boot
Hey, it's called 'football'!!

Its Natch - take the sack - the Natchitoches Travelin' Pants-Shittin' Show!
(Halleja! Halleja!)
Pack up the babies!
and give up a safety!
and drop easy throws!
Even wideouts are slow
In Natchitoches' Show!

(Hallelujah!)

(Halle, Halle-lujah!)

Corners!
(Hallelujah!)
I said, Corners!
(Halle, Halle-lujah!)
Now you got yourself two good hands!
(Hallelujah!)
Now when the bawl is underthrown you gots to reach out yo' one hand for it, cuz that's what it's thah fo'!
(Halle, Halle-lujah!)
And when yo' heart is troubled, you gots to tip that ball to the opposing reciever in fullstride and then knock over your teammate and both tumble to the ground for an easy TD, cuz that's what he's thah fo'!


(Hallelujah!)


Take this I-N-T
One of three this day!
Get knocked da F-out!
We still won't make the play!



Its Natch- take the sack - the Natchitoches Travelin' Pants-Shittin' Show!
(Halleja! Halleja!)
Pack up the babies!
and give up a safety!
and drop easy throws!
Even wideouts are slow
In Natchitoches' Show!

Bonus Clip: First Play of the 4th Quarter. THe Bayou Magic rolls along.

Do you dare to look away from nature's Cruelest Trick!

This took a while. Might need a day off for 'O'

Happy Signing Day!

"Them Orphans'll Hitchee"
- Dan Jenkins on recruiting secrets

May all your recruits be 3-sport, sub-4.4, 5-star, 6'-7", 890-SAT, 10-plus-character-guys who run like banshees and hit like orphans and if not, then I hope you get this QB:

M is for Magic

ESPN seems to have erased this transcendent moment from their searchable archive, but thanks to EDSBS's archive for keeping the link alive.

Your Sunday Sermon