Miracles

Do you believe in miracles? No, I’m not talking about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, the litany of darlings in this year’s NCAA Tournament (Davidson, Western Kentucky, Villanova), or even the fact that “Two and Half Men” is the highest rated comedy in the country. Seriously, how do people like that show? No, I’m not even talking about Sean Singletary’s 6 points in the last 6 seconds (including a banked 3 to tie) against ODU in the quarters of the College Basketball Invitational on Monday. The miracle I’m referring to is Ryan “Pett” Pettinella going three straight games with more points than fouls. I had written off this Oceanliner original feature 4 games ago when Pett fell into his deepest hole of the season and reached minus 15 on the Richter scale. But slowly, steadily and frighteningly for free throw coaches, Pett has scored in the plus for 3 straight contests now and has cut his deficit to minus 8 heading into tonight’s Final Four game (of the CBI) against Bradley. If the Hoos win tonight, it gives Pett at least two more games after that to try and rally from the darkest hole imaginable, and maybe three. This is only possible because this inaugural CBI has a final that is a three game series. Yup, you read that right. So let’s all keep our fingers crossed. I would be truly stunned if Pett finished the season with 5 straight more points than fouls games to get himself back into the red, but it would be a fantastic finish.

It would such a fantastic finish that my coworker and I started thinking about who would play the title characters of this drama if it were turned into a major motion picture. The most important role is obviously Pett himself. After careful consideration, I think Chris Klein (the lax jock in American Pie) would play the title role beautifully. Just check out the similarities between these two “studs”:

Next we need the filler for Dave Leitao. This role cannot be taken lightly, as it is Leitao’s furor and passion that pushes Pett to try and finish his senior year with more points than fouls. I’m thinking Sam Jackson here. Next we need a grim character to play the UVA Sports Information Director who midway through the season realizes what a dubious record Pett is about to set. This one was easy. No one is grimmer and more hardass at the same time that Fred Thompson in Die Hard 2 as the air traffic controller.

“My God…Pett has more fouls than points and we are halfway through the season. Christ help us all.”

It’s pure harmony. Some of the other characters are shoe ins as well. Lars would obviously play himself. No one could match his level of awkward intensity and tool-isheness. Plus no one could replicate his very strange sweat patterns. Julia Stiles would have to play a cheerleader that ends up sleeping with a black guy; that’s just what she does in movies. We would have to work in Sean Patrick Thomas in as well, as he only has UVA to hold onto anymore. He would fill in nicely as reserve players Solomon Tat or Jerome Meyinsse, or both. I am still brainstorming on other roles in this masterpiece. Please feel free to leave any suggestions as to who should star in this bio epic.

In all honesty now though, has anyone seen the end of the UVA-ODU game where Singletary had 6 points in the final 6 seconds to seal the win? Insane. Here is the link to watch this crazy video:

http://www.virginiasportstv.com/?v=1674&f=.mov

Singletary is amazing. As I said before, we play Bradley tonight in one semifinal, and if we advance we will play the winner of Tulsa and Houston in a 3 game series final. Too bad none of it is televised.

Moooooving on. So the final Eliminator never really happened (sorry to crush everybody by not providing last minute bracket analysis). It’s a little late now to update, but I’m going to do it anyway, and you’ll just have to believe that this is what I was going to say before last Thursday. It helps that two of my Eliminator picks are already out, for the exact reasons I predicted. Here is a direct quote from my February 29^th column: “At some point the 3’s will stop falling, and that’s when the Devils will lose.” Against West Virginia, Duke missed 15 straight triples at one point. That’s all there is to it. Georgetown was another Eliminator pick, mainly because of Roy Hibbert’s marginality. He had a Pettinella like night against Davidson with 6 points and 5 fouls. Buh bye Hoyas.

This is where you will just have to believe me, now that I’m talking about teams that are still in it. This is an incredibly top heavy tournament in my opinion. I think the best 8 or so teams are head and shoulders above the competition. I think it is impossible that a 1 or a 2 seed doesn’t cut down the nets this year. This means Wisconsin, Louisville, Wazzu, Xavier, Stanford and Michigan St can all kiss their title hopes good bye, along with the obvious low seeds like Villanova, Davidson, Western Kentucky and West Virginia. Now Duke and Georgetown are already gone as two seeds. And from past Eliminators we know that UCLA and Memphis will not be national champions. Again, UCLA will lose because of a horrendous officiating call and Memphis will lose because they can’t hit free throws (15-32, 46% against Miss St; good golly miss Molly). That leaves four teams with a chance for a title: Carolina, Texas, Kansas and Tennessee. The Vols have looked like garbage, but I can’t eliminate them based on 20/20 vision. That’s it, there’s your Eliminator. Yours truly picked Texas to win it all over Kansas in a rematch of the awesome Big 12 Title Game, but I’m scared to death of the Tar Heels right now. But hey, that’s why they play the games, and I can’t wait.

In one more note for this week, you can count me as the one person in America that’s not on the Stephen Curry bandwagon. Well, me and all the Gonzaga and Georgetown fans. Sure he’s good and all, but Curry is just too freakin weird looking for me to be a fan. I’m scared when I see him up close. Both his parents look normal, hell his mom is even kinda hot, but Curry himself looks like an albino cancer patient. His skin pigmentation really throws me off. His ears seem too big for his head, or he needs to grow longer hair (if he can). So that’s how I feel about that.

Well that’s it for this week folks. I took a one-week break from posting, mainly because I was lazy. But now it is springtime, and hopefully I will start posting with frequency now as nature starts blooming. Speaking of spring and blooming, I would like to congratulate a certain Mr. Fish and his engagement to Kathryn. I think it’s freakin awesome, and I know they will be happy. So on that positive note, stay safe, keep it real, and toss that rice.

Ranchero No Share-O

It’s all yours-o, not theirs-o. You know, corny commercials are really hit or miss with The Oceanliner. Some are really painful to watch and literally make me cringe with awkwardness. Others, like those new Quiznos Ranchero ads, crack me up every time. I don’t know what it is, but there is a fine line with me between corny-good and corny-horrendous. Like those new freecreditreport.com commercials with the songs. I personally find them amusing and catchy, but I could definitely see if some people wanted to drive their car off the road the next time they heard it.

F-r-e-e that spells free, credit report dot com, baby...

Love it. The little head bob the guy does at the end in his car is a perfect way to end it too. I have also liked the two other I have seen (pirate host at a tacky restaurant, living in parents basement). Keep em comin. Until I start to hate them.

Speaking of commercials, we are in the midst of one of the worst periods I can remember of incessant blasts for movies that look absolutely awful. I think it started with the losers that promoted Jumper, where you would see 5 spots a day for a movie that A) looked horrific (way to go Sam Jackson) and B) didn’t come out for another 2 months. It has gotten worse in these weeks following the Osacrs, when I assume movie execs are dumping the dregs of their lot on to the poor public. Over the past couple of nights I’ve seen trailers for Doomsday, Shutter (man that Pacy from Dawson’s Creek is gonna be a star!), Step Up 2, Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson has fallen hard), Never Back Down and Bachelor Party 2 (straight to DVD!). Each movie made me shake my head in a combination of incredulity, sadness and disgust. Like I said earlier, I hope this is just a garbage dump stage between Oscar season and summer blockbusters, otherwise the movie industry is in a depressed state. Somehow, 10,000 BC made $35 million in its opening weekend (you know a movie is bad when you see the preview and you have no idea what the movie is about) and College Road Trip made $14 million (you know this movie is bad because it “stars” Martin Lawrence and Raven Simone). I knew it was a sad state of affairs when the most attractive movie option at the moment for me was a toss up between Vantage Point (Dennis Quaid is a hero! Forest Whitaker is a tourist!) and Horton Hears a Who.

This may be my Oelschlager heritage coming out, but I think a recessive Eurotrash gene has resurfaced in my family, as I am somehow unable to turn off awful techno-pop when it comes on the radio. Sandstorm? Love it. That remake of Listen to Your Heart? Can’t get enough of it. The techno version of the Braveheart song? Addicting. So if you were driving on the Beltway this morning around 8:30 and saw some lunatic bouncing around his blue Grand Cherokee like a madman, you can relax. It wasn’t me having a seizure; Hot 99.5 decided to play Everytime We Touch by Cascada and I had to crank it. I had no choice, it was reflexive. I need help.

And yes, there is an actual point to this post, so I will stop with the strange Oceanliner anecdotes. It is time to update the Eliminator, those teams which are not going to win the NCAA Tournament. Last week we said good bye to Duke, Memphis and every Mid Major that’s makes it (this now includes Cornell, Belmont, Portland State, Winthrop, George Mason, Butler, Siena, Drake, Mt. St. Mary’s, Austin Peay, Davidson, Oral Roberts, Western Kentucky and San Diego). It’s time to add two more teams to the No Soup For You list. Drumroll please…

Georgetown

Roy Hibbert is not a very good basketball player. He played in the same conference as Episcopal in high school and I remember seeing him play when I was a senior and he was a junior. He was terrible. The man literally could not run or catch. Ole Roy has definitely grown into his body, but he still looke like Old Man River. He is still awkward as hell, will definitely not take over a game and is very overrated. I mean, this is a guy who averaged 13.6 points and 6.4 rebounds this year, and he’s supposed to be some kind of superstar? Why are people calling him a lottery pick? The only reason is because he’s 7’2”, which is hilarious because someone who is that tall needs to be able to play basketball too. He has improved exponentially since high school, but he’s not NBA caliber and he can’t take over a college game like Oden could. The Hoyas had their best shot last year when they had a legitimate college ace in Jeff Green (who’s now averaging 9 and 5 in the Show by the way). Now they don’t have Green and Hibbert is still average. These ingredients are not going to put together a Champion. Sorry G-town, you’ve been eliminated.

UCLA

It is tough for me to eliminate the Bruins, especially since they have the inside-outside presence needed to win a championship. It’s even tougher for me to eliminate them because they have been essentially disqualified for actions that were of no fault of their own. UCLA was the beneficiary of two absolutely horrendous officiating calls in their two back-to-back nail biter wins against Standford and Cal. Again, this was no fault of their own. But every NCAA champion needs a little but of luck along the way, and the Bruins have already used up all of theirs. The college basketball gods look down on this sort of thing and must equalize. UCLA has already gotten two miracle calls, and they will not get the others needed to win the Tournament. I’m even going to even go as far as to predict that an egregious, game altering, last second call is going to go against UCLA come Tournament time, and they will be helpless to prevent it. I feel bad for UCLA, because the college basketball gods have to smite them down. But that’s the way it goes sometimes. Bu bye Bruins.

If you hadn’t noticed already, NC State is pathetic. They have lost 9 games in a row. Early season losses came to New Orleans and East Carolina. In their loss to Miami today in the first round of the ACC Tourney, JJ Hickson actually had a good game. He had 27 points on 8-15 shooting. Too bad the rest of his “team mates” combined to go 8-33 from the field (24%) and score only 23 points themselves. That’s just painfully bad.

Anyone catch Bob Knight doing some analysis for ESPN? I didn’t listen to a word he said because what he was wearing cracked me up so much. While Digger Phelps and whoever was hosting were all dapper in their suits, Knight had on a collared shirt and a windbreaker. Priceless. It looked like he had just come in off the golf course. No way is The General going to be The Man’s bitch and put on a suit. The windbreaker even had an ESPN logo stitched on it. Great stuff.

Well that’s it for this week folks. The Oceanliner is very excited about the Virginia-Georgia Tech game tonight. Be sure to tune in at 7pm on the deuce. That’s 6pm for you in the Central, Gutie. Hopefully the Cavs can prolong their season. Either way it will be fun to watch Sean Singletary ball it up at least one more time. So until next time friends, same bat time, same bat channel.

The Tea Bag

Hello everyone, happy Monday. Let’s start this week off with something everyone can enjoy. And by everyone I mean people who love watching Duke lose, of which the Oceanliner may be Vice President. I love a good posterizing. I love a good posterizing that features a monster dunk. And I most certainly love a good posterizing featuring a monster dunk that results in Greg Paulus getting tea bagged on national television while simultaneously silencing the Cameron Crazies.

Insert a thousand words here. No prose can capture the beauty of that picture. If Superman himself were to tea bag someone, that is what it would look like. It’s as if Danny Green had practiced his whole life for that one moment. Note the eerie similarity between Green’s pose during The Tea Bag (yes, this is officially The Tea Bag now) and the sweetest logo of all time.

Sometimes the universe aligns in just the right moment and gives us history. The Tea Bag is one of those moments.

Danny Green is quickly becoming one of my favorite players in college basketball. This is not wholly due to his authorship of The Tea Bag, but it’s part of it. Green is a pure gamer and I love watching him play. He can shoot (48% from the field, 85% from the line and 38% from deep this season), drive (The Tea Bag), run the floor, rebound (5.4 a game in 22 min off the bench) and defend (1.3 steals a game, 7 blocks against Duke). He is a stat stuffer and provides instant energy for a Tar Hell team that is already stock full of it. Green reminds me of The Matrix Shawn Marion with his versatility and athleticism. Green even has the cocky swagger that Marion does not. Needless to say, I am very excited to watch Green and the Tar Hell Co. over the next three weeks.

Speaking of tea bagging, I’m so relieved that there is at least one person in the media who is not lining up to service Brett Favre on his Peter King sponsored retirement tour. Glubiak forwarded me this link to a piece written by ESPN’s Sal “The Vowels in My Last Name Don’t Make Sense” Paolantonio. If you enjoyed the beginning of my last post you will enjoy this as well. Or if you just want the other side of the Favre bandwagon.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=paolantonio_sal&id=3281535&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos1

In one final note about the Duke-Carolina game, Dicky V is quickly becoming one of the worst color commentators in the business. There is hardly a shred of any actual analysis anymore. All Vitale does is gush and scream about 1) the college atmosphere 2) the passion, heart and effort of the players, and 3) the omnipotence of the coaches. It is nice to expound on these virtues once a game, but Vitale went on a rant about these things every 3 minutes. I never once heard a interesting or poignant piece of analysis or any semblance of X’s and O’s. ESPN needs to sack up and tell Viatle to actually do his job or he’s canned, but of course this will never happen.

On the other hand, I was very impressed by the pre, mid and post game comments by UNC alum Hubert Davis and Duke grad Jay Bilas on ESPN about the best rivalry in sports. On Game Day, both gave props and respect to the other team while still strongly defending why they believed their respective alma maters would prevail. At halftime, both presented frank and unbiased analysis about what they had seen (Davis: “If North Carolina continues to play good defense, they will hold on for the win”. Bilas: “Duke must handle the ball better if they have any shot of coming back in this game”). Most impressive of all though was after the game when Davis didn’t gloat (like Boo-yah or Keyshawn would have done) and Bilas didn’t act like a sore loser (“Carolina played harder and deserved to win this game”). There was none of the contrived argument that ESPN loves to promote these days. Plus you had vanilla-but-effective Rece Davis moderating and Digger’s ridiculous hat as high comedy. Throw in one of the best play-by-play men in the biz right now (Dan Schulman) and the smoking hot Erin Andrews roaming the sidelines and you get some of the best coverage of a major sporting event that ESPN has done in a while. It’s just too bad Vitale brought them all down to a 2 from a 10 because of his incessant idolatry of college, its students, players and coaches.

I hope everyone got a chance to watch the UVA-Maryland game last night and the terrific end to Sean Singletary’s brilliant career. It was a satisfying ending to a disappointing regular season to beat the Terps by 15 at home on Senior Night with 44 leading the way while getting his jersey getting retired. Not only that, Singletary was just named to the All ACC First Team for the third year in a row. Singletary garnered Third Team All America status last season, the first time since Ralph Sampson that any Wahoo has earned that recognition. It looks bleak that he will repeat on that team with the way the season has gone, but we all need to recognize how good of a plyer we have watched in Charlottesville over the past 4 years.

Painfully corny note of the week. It hurts and saddens me that some loser UVA fan at the game last night got on TV at least 5 times with one of the worst signs in recent memory. “Thanks 44 the memories” it said. So stupid. So painful. If the number was just 4, it would have been alright because the play on words would have actually made sense and it would have earned a small smile. But since it’s 44, it doesn’t make sense and it sucked. Plus the dude was wearing a backwards cammo hat. F.

Let us all be thankful that Ryan Pettinella also played his last regular season game for the Cavs last night. If he had two more years left instead of having transferred from Penn I would weep every day for the next two seasons. Pett had a vintage game against Maryland for his standards. Unfortunately this means playing horribly, picking up 3 fouls with no other stats in 7 minutes. Horrific production. Pett finishes the regular season minus 15 points to fouls. Pett is really not good at playing basketball.

Well, that’s it for today folks. The college basketball scheduling gods have managed smiled on the Cavs in terms of the ACC Tournament. Be sure to tune in Thursday night at 7pm on ESPN2 as we take on a very beatable Georgia Tech team in the first round. Should the Hoos win, we play Dook the next night at 7. I am very grateful that I will be able to watch these game(s). Thank you college basketball gods. Be sure to look for an Eliminator update later this week. Until then my friends, stay safe, keep it real and curve your hats right.

Memories

A drive crippling, back breaking, game ending, heart wrenching, soul tearing, duck season interception. Let me say it again because it makes me feel all warm inside. Brett Favre’s career ended on a drive crippling, back breaking, game ending, heart wrenching, soul tearing, duck season interception. I for one could not be more happy. That overtime pick against the Giants in the NFC Title game will endure as my most vivid memory of good ol number 4. It completely epitomizes who he is in my mind. I will also remember the 287 other interceptions he threw, most in NFL history. I will remember the five 20 interception seasons he had. I will remember his pedestrian 1.53 career touchdown to interception ratio. I will remember him never throwing less than 13 picks in a season. I will remember his 147 career fumbles (unfortunately he only lost 64 of them). I will remember the 439 sacks he took.

These are the things that I will remember about Brett Favre. Everyone else is too busy gushing about how amazing he was, so I figure someone has to recount how bad The Ginslinger was at times. You can call me a hater, I’m fine with that. It just really bothers me that people act like its taboo to not like Brett Favre. I respect the man. He was an unbelievable quarterback. That doesn’t mean I have to like him. He beat my 49ers multiple times in the playoffs, and his cocky attitude on the field really turned me off. Not only is he the career leader in interceptions thrown, in my mind he if the unofficial king of leader in heave ho, gawd awful interceptions. And like a light shining down from above, there is at least one other person who feels the same way I do. This compilation of horrific Favre interceptions will be one of my bookmarks for the rest of my days.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aKikPebj0sE

I would pay 100 bucks to get an NFL films DVD of every one of Brett Favre’s career interceptions, sacks and fumbles. It would be spectacular. It would also be like 6 hours long. But Steve Sabol, along with most other media members, is too busy worshiping Favre for this to ever happen. Oh well.

In other memories, the Ryan Pettinella saga is quickly becoming one as there is now no way he will go plus on his season long quest for more points than fouls. Its officially over. Before it would take a small miracle, but now its impossible. The Cavs had a grueling 5 day stretch from Saturday to Wednesday in which they sandwiched a win over Georgia tech in between losses to Miami and Duke. Pett went minus 6 during this stretch (of course towards fouls) and is now at 72 fouls and 60 points with only 2 or 3 games left. Sorry buddy, your ship has sailed. This mother is closed.

Here are some more quick hits that are floating around in my brain:

Watch out for the Cleveland Browns offense next year. They resigned Derek Anderson and just brought in Donte Stallworth to a multiyear deal. This attack could be scary good. In case you hadn’t noticed, Braylon Edwards is one of the top 5 receivers in the league. Last year he had 80 catches for 1,289 yards and 16 freakin touchdowns. He has really come into his own and backed up the Browns for taking him 3^rd overall in the ’05 draft. He was on SportsCenter’s Top 10 almost weekly throughout the season for his ridiculous circus catches. Besides Edwards, a top flight number 1 wideout, the Browns have a great possession guy in Joe Jurevicius in the slot, a superb deep threat now in Stallworth, a stud tight end in Kellen Winslow (82 grabs, 1,106 yards and 5 TD’s last year) and a resurrected Jamal Lewis in the running game (1,304 yards and 9 TD’s). Cleveland was 8^th in the NFL in scoring last year, and I predict them getting into the top 5 in 2008. If Andersen doesn’t regress, I don’t see how you are going to stop these guys.

For all you Wahoo fans out there: there is an awesome 4-page article on Chris Long in this week’s Sports Illustrated (the one with Hansbrough on the cover). Very cool stuff. I highly recommend picking it up. If you can’t, here’s one of the highlights. They mention how Littlejohn’s on the corner has a sandwich names after Ralph Samson. They then quote the owner as saying he’s planning on coming out with a footlong hot dog named after Chris Long. How awesome is that? I suggest The Long Dog. In serious talk about the draft now, I would honestly take Long over Glen Dorsey of LSU, even if a little of that is biased. There are too many questions surrounding Dorsey’s injuries for me to take him with a top 5 pick. I would much rather have Long, a guy who has never been hurt and you know will produce at the next level. As my Dad was saying, you know Chris Long will be a successful pro. You don’t know if he will be a 10 time All Pro or just have a solid 10 year career, but he will be a successful NFL player. I would be worried that Dorsey would have an injury plagued career and never really take off. But that’s just me.

In more Draft talk, people are saying Matt Ryan might go number 1 to the Dolphins. If Miami pulls the trigger on Ryan, I say they are insane. How has Ryan shot up so quickly? He has been too mediocre in lots of the times I’ve seen him to even be a Top 10 pick. I wouldn’t take him until the late first round at the earliest. Brady Quinn is better than Matt Ryan and he went in the 20’s. Jamarcus Russell got $60 million from the Raiders last year. If Ryan goes number 1 he will get that kind of money. Does he deserve that? Hell no. Give me Brian Brohm or Joe Flacco in the late first, early second rounds. In fact, I’m gonna say it right now: Matt Ryan will be an NFL bust. But hey, that’s just me.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. Springtime weather is slowly settling in, and I love it. This weekend we spring back absurdly early, so remember to change you clocks and watches on Saturday night. Until next time, stay safe, keep it real and don’t knock your socks off.