Hard To Earn

Anybody who knows me, knows that college hoops is my favorite sport…hand down. And usually every year I’m hype as hell for the season to start. But it was something about this year that felt different. I know one of the things that bummed me out was the fact that my squad Uconn wasn’t in the Big East anymore. In fact, when it comes to this new Big East, I feel like Poot and Bodie did when they tore down the towers. The other thing that I was bummed out about was Calhoun not being on the sidelines anymore. Now, I’ve said it once but I’ll say it again that while the NBA is all about the players, (how many Bulls fans were still around after Jordan called it quits?) college hoops is all about the coach. A coaching change can be the thing that makes you jump ship from your squad. So with those two things on tap, I won’t hold you, I wasn’t looking forward to this year in college hoops.


In the beginning of the year, I wasn’t feeling Kevin Ollie and I won’t front, the bulk of it just had to do with the fact that he wasn’t Coach Calhoun. Which isn’t necessarily fair but that’s just how I felt. And the other reason was because of how my squad was playing. Now for cats who didn’t watch us play all year, trust me when I say I was pulling out my hair and looking for any and everything to throw at the TV ALL of the time cause of the boneheaded plays we’d make and some of dumb ass shots we’d take (usually Napier) and I blamed all of that on Ollie. Which lead me to my infamous rant on how I was done with Uconn. But keep in mind, during my rant I also said I’m always riding out for Uconn and that it would ALWAYS be a “we” thing if for no other reason then I just got TOO much Uconn gear! Plus, there’s NO way after 3 chips and the hoops history we’ve got that I was giving all of that up for nuthin’. Now, was I frustrated by a rack of stuff that was going on in Storres? Yeah. Did I jump the gun a little too quick to pull the trigger to say I was done with them? Hell yeah! But like I said, there’s no way I would EVER stop runnin’ with Uconn.

Which brings me to present day…which is the day after Uconn just beat Kentucky for our 4th chip. Yup…you heard that right “our” 4th chip. And to be honest, there’s no way in the world I thought that we’d be here. And being really, really honest, I didn’t know if we’d get past St. Joes in the 1st round the way we looked all year…but we did. And there was absolutely no way in the world that I thought we could beat Michigan State…but we did. And to be really, really, REALLY honest, I knew there was NO WAY we were beating Florida. And trust, I heard ALL of the hoopla about how we were the last team Florida lost to before they went on their 30 game win streak but that still didn’t make me no never mind…but then we beat them too. So by this time (I know it took a hell of a lot to get me to believe) I knew that we could beat Kentucky. In fact, the day of the game I was telling my man Fish that we just beat Florida by 10, and since Florida had been punking Kentucky all season…then we’re good money. And last night, we were good money. The bugged thing that I realized almost halfway through this 1st half was that we beat Georgia Tech for the chip when I turned 30 back in ’04 and since I just turned 40, that would means it’s the 10th anniversary of chip we won in ’04 and after peeping that I KNEW there was NO WAY we were losing this game cause not only was fate on our side…but so was Shabazz Napier.

Now, there’s now way I can write this piece on Uconn’s win and not talk about Shabazz Napier…in a good way. Now, the reason I say that is because I’ve talked SO much trash about Napier ALL year long that I gotta salute this dude cause he mos def deserves it. Now don’t get it twisted, I still stand by everything I said about dude’s hoops IQ and his horrible shot selection during the year but somehow, someway like Oragnized Konfusion, Kevin Ollie got in money’s ear cause during the tournament Napier looked like a flat out hoops gza out there. But prior to the tourney all year long I kept hearing about Shabazz Napier being the 2nd coming of Kemba Walker and in my eyes dude was nuthin but a broke version of Kemba Walker at best but guess what? Mr. Napier sure as hell proved me wrong cause the same dude who I couldn’t wait til he graduated so he could get the hell outta Storres is the same dude who is now the Final Four MVP and who helped my squad get hardware in both his freshmen and his senior year and bring us our 4th chip in the past 16 years AND make this squad go down in history as the ONLY #7 seed to win the chip. So with that under his belt, I can’t do nuthin’ but salute my dude cause if I got my wish of him jetting outta Storres, I wouldn’t be on cloud nine right now.

So what started out as the worst basketball season of all time, not only turned into one of the illest tournament runs I’ve EVER seen but it also taught me a lot about making hasty decisions cause I’ve always been hell bent on how messed up GM’s are nowadays in the league because they expect a coach to win the chip after 2 years at the helm of a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in 10+ years. And I’m always saying that the owner & the GM gotta at least give the coach a good 3-5 years to put things together. And then I turn around and only give Ollie a year and half before I was ready to throw this dude to the wolves, so I guess I’m the pot calling the kettle black huh? The moral to the story for me is that Ollie has proven himself to me and trust, it’s not because he won the chip but it’s because he got his squad to not only believe that they could win it all but he got those boys playing a GREAT brand of basketball and to be honest, that’s all I wanted…but I’ll also take that 4th chip too.