Murphy’s Blog

Toot, toot, m-f’ers!!!  Nice game, Boilers!  Hell yeah, IU cowboyed up behind their Lumbee Indian coach to lay a whuppin’ on in-state rival and top-25 team Purdue.  This was the first time since ‘94 that both teams were ranked this highly and Purdue was riding an 11-game winning streak.  Oh, this was also the only time the two teams would square off this year.  Hey, I get that having 11 teams means not playing everyone twice, but you’ve got to have some fucking common sense when you make the schedules.  IU and Purdue NEED TO PLAY TWICE EVERY YEAR.  And if you’re only going to have them play once, you need to at least put the game in a semi-neutral location.  Indy would be nice, but it would be a pro-IU crowd; that’s fine with me, but the legions of Boiler fans who overrate their teams every year would probably take issue with it.  Hell, I’m sure some of them were upset that their only game against their rivals this year had to be at Assembly Hall.  I can only hope the convincing IU win has washed the sand from their collective vagina. 

Early reports on the game said that DJ White’s participation would be “iffy,” but I think he proved that he was anything but.  I had been afraid that his balky knee might cause him some problems, but I saw during the game that it was not the knee, but rather his gigantic balls, that got in the way.  Seriously, I can’t think of the last time I saw a man RIP down boards and go up that strong to the bucket with 3 guys on him.  He was playing like a man on fire.  As my brother texted me after a particularly manly DJ play, “if this game was Altered Beast, he just got a power up.”  DJ played like the main character from that lauded video game, collecting errant shots like power-ups and casting aside Boilers like so many cartoon zombies on his way to victory. 

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I felt as if Purdue would win this game.  I mean, the IU program is in limbo, their best player was supposedly questionable for the game.  Yeah, that’s right, I just called DJ White their best player.  EJ is awesome, but he has a long way to go before he’s a great player.  Hell, Kelvin Sampson might be done after tonight.  But despite all that, the Hoosiers came out and fought back against the early hot shooting of the overmatched Boilers and they showed who the real Top-15 team was.  Purdue’s interior weakness and lack of speed was exposed.  IU closed out on the perimeter shooters, switched well on screens, and moved the ball effectively in the transition, all of which led to easy buckets. 

Okay, I know I said “finally” earlier, but I’ve got more.  I’m a little drunk, so I am just a bit effusive right now.  Matt Painter is not my favorite dude in the world, but I have to admit that he’s done quite a bit with the talent level he’s dealing with.  Typically, the Purdue lineup and a quarter would still not be enough to make a long-distance phone call, but he’s somehow molded that team into a contender.  Making sucking Bruce Weber’s balls makes you a better coach.

I’m sure this news comes as a shock to you, but in my opinion, Marissa Miller should be the sole covergirl for the SI Swimsuit Edition until she’s 40.  And even then, she’ll still probably be better looking than most of the other chicks they could throw up there.  Why did they even have other girls in the mag this year?  Seriously though, there didn’t seem to be nearly enough of the cover model’s shots inside the issue, which was more than mildly disappointing.  The body paint shots were very nice though. 

In a slightly different vein, does everyone else remember how the Swimsuit Edition used to be this almost taboo issue of SI that came in February to melt the winter snows away?  I know a lot of people used to get super pissed about it, and I’m sure many still do.  But that one single issue has become a HUGE cultural phenomenon, so kudos to SI for continuing on with it and making it bigger and bigger all the time.  The one thing that worries me is that it appears to me that the talent is getting a little watered down and the hype may be getting a little much.  It could just be that notalgia has airbrushed the women in my memories, but I used to think that every girl in that issue was a goddess.  Now, I think about half of them look like they spent the last month with Amy Winehouse in a posh rehab facility.  And, since it’s actually on topic, I want to put in a shameless plug for one of my sponsors, Addison St. Sports Illustrated Store on eBay.  They sell tons of old issues of SI, including several Swimsuit Editions.  Click the link to check them out.

Sorry, Chief, but you cannot bring this kind of shame upon the IU program and keep your job.  Mike Davis beat on his own forehead like a frightened autistic kid but at least he never had the NCAA sniffing around.  IU might not be the premier destination for America’s blue-chip talent any longer, but it’s always been a squeaky clean program.  Hell, I might think about cutting this cat some slack if IU was playing good, fundamental basketball, but even that’s not happening.  I mean, where is the nose-to-the-grindstond, blue-collar stuff we saw from Sampson’s Sooners?  If these latest notices from the N-C-2-A are even close to true, I think we need to tell Sampson “laters.”

Wow, I’m sitting here in my underwear and my Cubs robe watching this melodrama unfold and it’s hilarious.  The Rocket is so full of shit; he’s stuttering and trying to smear around the truth so that he doesn’t look as bad.  He has done absolutely nothing to make me think he’s telling the truth, particularly now that he’s trying to refute everything Pettitte said.  Clemens’ responses are just that Andy Pettitte must have misheard or misunderstood what Roger was saying.  Yeah, he misheard you telling him that you had shot up HGH.  Now they’re pulling out Pettitte’s wife’s affadavit, which ALSO says that Clemens told Pettitte that he used HGH.  And Clemens again says that Andy misremembers.  What’s worse is that Clemens is basically throwing his friend under the bus.

I’m pretty skeptical of all the “free” offers I see everywhere.  Hell, I’m even skeptical of stuff that costs money.  Like when this Viatnamese whore approached me and said: “Fi dolla, fi dolla!  Me so ho-ny, baby, me love you long time.  Fi dolla, ennuh-ting you want, baby,” I was understandably pessimistic.  In any case, I was beginning to wonder about the rebate that came as a part of my purchase of a Samsung Blu-Ray player from a big box electroics retailer.  I was supposed to get 5 free movies with my purchase, so I filled out the necessary stuff and mailed it off.  Well, sure enough, I got my 5 movies in the mail today in what may well be the shoddiest packaging ever.  I was pretty happy about it, even though the likelihood of me watching all of the movies is slim. 

Also, Matt Painter sucks.

I had never heard of him before tonight, but Calvin Brock of Illinois is a damn fine ballplayer.  He’s not a guy who’s going to light up the scoreboard, but he does a lot of things that help you win ballgames.  I just kept hearing his name, whether it was a rebound, block, steal, or just general hustle play.  He was almost as much a part of the Illini’s near upset of IU as Lance Stemler and Jamarcus Ellis’s worthlessness.

I don’t care that it was a desperation heave at the buzzer, Shaun Pruitt absolutely molested DJ White.  I know that it’s anticlimactic and maybe even a little BS to end a game free throws with no time left, but you can’t just put your whistle in your pocket in that situation.  Oh, and of course Shaun Ellis got to head to the line with the game tied and only 2 seconds left after a much weaker foul; it’s a good thing he’s got the ugliest free throw this side of Dale Davis.  Holy crap, Jamarcus Ellis just made a layup!  Maybe he’s not so worthless after all.

That’s pretty much it.  When I’m upset with one or more of the players on the teams I follow, I’ve been known to say, “I could play better than so-and-so.”  Well, in the cases of Stemler and Ellis, it’s at least partially true.  I could easily step onto the floor in an NCAA game and fire up off-target jumpers, miss layups, dive on the floor, and commit useless fouls. 

Just finished watching Eastern Promises.  Good movie, but I could have done without the fight scene in the bath house.  Way too much naked Viggo Mortensen, way too much wang floppin’ around.  For about 5 minutes, I felt like I was watching a Kevin Bacon flick.

       I want to see Roger Clemens hang.  It’s not because I hate him or because I hate the Yankees and he played for them, twice.  It’s not even because he kept retiring and then coming back, each time demanding more and more outrageous salary figures.  It’s because I think he’s guilty and I’m pissed off about the way he’s handled the whole PED allegation thing.  In keeping with the traditions of Ash Wednesday, I’ve been thinking a lot of repentance and how if The Rocket had just come clean from the start, America probably would have forgiven and forgotten.  Look at Giambi: that meathead offered a half-hearted excuse-me swing of an apology and the normally merciless NYC media and a-holes, er, Yankees fans acted as if it never happened.  Here is why I think Clemens is guilty: 1) When the allegations first arose, he said nothing.  A truly innocent person would not need to meet with his legal team for days to dig up dirt on an accuser and to carefully craft a press release.  No, a truly innocent man would have climbed to the rooftop to profess his innocence.  2) No one gets better after the age of 35 in sports, no one.  Some people can continue to perform at a high level, but no one can stay the same or get better.  3) Rocket is a proud sumbitch who is obsessed with numbers, most notably his strikeout total.  Hell, he named his kids all with K names because K is what’s used in the books to record punchouts.  No way does a dude that driven to succeed not take steps to increase or prolong his performance.  All this Texas-sized douche is doing at this point is climbing higher up the ladder, thereby making his fall from grace that much farther.  In hearing the whole melodrama of McNamee v. Rocket, I can’t help but think of a time when I was younger and my family was sitting around the table eating dinner.  My younger brother must have been 4 or 5 at the time and he accidentally knocked over his glass of milk, spilling it everywhere.  My mom told him to clean it up and when he asked why, she told him it was because he had knocked the glass over.  ”No I didn’t,” he said, even though all of us had witnessed the event.  I couldn’t fathom what could have possessed my little brother to lie in the face of the evidence, and I am starting to feel the same way about Clemens.  If the latest reports are true and McNamee really does have physical evidence linking Rocket to PEDs, I can’t wait to hear the bullshit his lawyers dream up.         

       Message to the mainstream media: lay off Bob Knight already.  Cowherd was pissing me off today as he railed on about Knight being a hypocrite and about how college coaches shouldn’t want to graduate players.  His argument was that if you have players who stay for 4 years of college, you clearly didn’t recruit very well.  Only George Mason has 5 seniors, Cowherd said.  Because we all know that most college basketball players go on to earn millions in the Association.  Yeah, nice one Colin.  He said that Knight went to Tech so that he could bully the administration and the players, since it’s a low-profile football school in the Big 12 and because it’s in the middle of nowhere.  Maybe he just wanted to escape from at least a little of the shitstorm that is NCAA basketball.  Finally, Cowherd said that by retiring in mid-season, Knight is contradicting all he’s ever taught.  I guess it never occurred to Cowherd that The General might have been doing a disservice to his team by staying around and going through the motions even though his heart was no longer fully in it.  He had already named a successor, his son Pat, and said individual was able to step into his new role seamlessly.  If I was a player for Coach Knight, I’d rather that than he just leave at the end of the season with no contingency plan in place.        

       As a small addendum, and this really pains me to say, I am going to throw my lot in with Dick Vitale on a certain topic.  IU needs to name the floor at Assembly Hall, or maybe even name the Hall itself, after Robert Montgomery Knight.  Miles Brand, the asshole who runs the NCAA, is no longer there and Knight is no longer coaching, so it’s about damn time they give the guy his due.  Actually, you know what?  I’m going to back off of the statement about naming the floor or the arena after him; they need to name the library after him.  During his tenure at IU, Bob Knight raised millions and donated quite a large sum to the library because he actually cared about the education of the students there.  Coach Knight has been, and will continue to be, a polarizing figure at IU and in the country at large, but his accomplishments cannot be denied.  Now that his career is seemingly at an end, I would hope the university to which he brought so much is able to lay aside the issues of the past and recognize him properly.  And I hope ESPN will continue to run countdowns of his greatest soundbytes.

       Finally, I received a pretty cool link in an email today; it asks you a series of questions and then uses your responses to calculate which Presidential candidate’s platform you most closely agree with.  Sure, it’s not very scientific, but I thought it was pretty cool.  Here’s the link: http://www.electoralcompass.com/.  And just in case you were wondering, I was pretty evenly aligned with Ron Paul, Obama, and Bill Clinton’s wife.