February 18, 2008

It Feels Good To Laugh Again (AKA Texas-A&M Live Blog Part I)

What a great weekend.
  • A great NBA All-Star weekend, summed up amazingly by Bill Simmons here
  • Ryan Perriloux reminds the Texas fans in us of the majesty of unanswered prayers by getting suspended from the LSU football team
  • Our old friend Ben Dorfman is finally back to blogging, although with significantly more hair and far fewer Little Vince's. With a business plan of "I can't promise anything terribly interesting, and I can't promise regularity, but I will try" how can you not see success in this blog's future?
  • Texas played its best 37 minutes of basketball against Baylor, followed by the worst 2 1/2 minutes we've ever seen
  • We're one day closer to never having to see another promo for Witless Protection
  • Finally, today is President's Day, meaning one of us (the one that works for the government) was off and able to see The American President, Shawshank Redemption, and Dodgeball all in one day on basic cable.
Thanks to all this, we're in a good mood, so we're going to give live blogging the Texas-Texas A&M game a shot. It's time to grab life by the ball:

Pregame -- We're coming to you live from the internet. We're still 90 minutes away from game time, but there are a couple of things we're looking for. We just got an e-mail from the son of the former personal assistant to the minister of mines, works and energy in Sudan asking for our help in a business proposition, so until then think about this:
1) A low scoring poorly played Big East game which comes down to the last shot and possibly overtime is taking place again on ESPN. This game will have questionable calls and make us miss several minutes of the Texas game.
2) Dickie V will (hopefully) note that they are jumping joyously in downtown Austin
3) Texas trails Aggy in the Lonestar Showdown 5-3. That is decidedly uncool.
4) The game in College Station sucked. Shooting 30% in the first half while letting a clunky poor shooting team to shoot 64% is not a good idea.
5) And finally, remember that: Baaaa Means No!
1st Half:
20:00 -- Shockingly (!) the Big East defensive crapfest that was Louisville-Syracuse ends 61-50 a full 8 minutes before Texas-Aggy is set to start. Digger says so crap about the Big East being good, there's a woman on the set saying something about basketball, a picture of the walking hack that is Joseph Jones, the top ten is shown (Texas at #7 with wins over #2, #5, and #6), and we're set to go.

19:30 -- A&M misses an open 3 to start the game and DJ knocks down an 18-footer. Both are great signs.

17:07 -- Connor Atchley takes out Damion James underneath who is replaced by Gary Johson. Connor then hits a big three, Justin Mason makes a block on the other end and AJ hits the three to make it 11-2 early.

14:38 -- DJ knocks down a three and then an acrobatic two following another stop. It's 16-4 Texas as we hit the under 16. Meanwhile, could there be a more idiotic feature then ESPN's Greatest Highlight with Chris Berman? Somewhere along the line somebody at ESPN thought it would be a good idea to take the greatest plays in sports history, tape over the historic calls with Chris Berman give something generic relating to the event, and let fans vote as though there's a way to determine whether the Immaculate Reception is "better" than the Miracle on Ice. Just moronic.

12:50 -- Deandre Jordan gets mugged underneath with no fould being called, then DJ is attacked with no foul. Ron Franklin mentions that Joseph Jones has fouled out every time he has played Texas... that sounds right.

11:43 -- Texas has gone cold, which is all that's keeping this game from becoming a blow out. 16-4 still at the under 12.

10:24 -- Texas remains cold but Damion James throws down a sick alley oop. Looked like damion went a foot above the rim to get that one.

8:53 -- A great move by Sexy Dexy followed by Damion James with a great block (goalkeeping?), then a terrific boxout by Sexy Dex on a Damion James bucket with the foul. It's 23-7 Texas.

7:50 -- It's 23-9. Texas A&M now has 27 points in the last 32:10 of basketball. Interesting.

7:03 -- Starting to see a tighter called game by the refs. Meanwhile Texas has missed 6 straight three pointers.

4:51 -- Offensive foul on Aggy. The refs are starting to get annoying even though many of the calls are on the Sheeplovers.

3:40 -- The Texas "D" has been just spectacular; Ricky B must have really hit that hard after the awful defensive game in College Station. Unfortunately, the shooting has not been quite good enough to totally put the bad guys away, but...WOW! DJ Augustin nails a three. We REALLY need him to pick up his scoring heading into the postseason so that's a big shot. A 31-13 lead with under 4 to go till half is lovely.

3:30 -- Franklin just reported that Texas has 7 blocks on the night. That is awesome. We believe Chapman's entire role is to be a basher, like in hockey. Just commit fouls and get back on the bench.

2:30 -- Aggies have been helping us out from the free throw line. It's 35-14 and DJ has just hit a lovely floater from the baseline--this has already been a MUCH better showing than in college station.

1:40 -- DJ again! He's 7-of-10 with 17 points. Looks to us like he's back. Sweet. Augustin's success offensively is Great Sign Number One, but a close second is the fact that agyy has FOURTEEN FREAKING POINTS with very, very little time left in the first half. they could double their point total and Texas could score no more points, and the Horns would still win.

1:36 -- Darrell Royal is in the house! Fiancee just said: "what a cutie!" Even when they know sports...

1:10 -- Meanwhile, Texas throws it away and allows an easy layup on the other end. Need to avoid getting sloppy with a big lead, a la Baylor on Saturday.

:25 -- DJ and Damion are at it again! They have been great in this half. The two of them have combined for 27 of the 39 Texas points.

:00 -- Another block for the exclamation point on a spectacular half of basketball! Wow. Nobody wants to play Texas in March.

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