Okay, I'm sitting in Organic Evolution right now with my professor giving a presentation on Bigfoot, and it just so happens that he is the most credible "expert" in the world on the subject. (Dr. Jeff Meldrum) We're watching the Patterson-Gimlin film and he's going over it, it's very interesting, and he's not trying to persuade anyone that he's correct in his beliefs, he's tying it in to Evolution and whatnot. I have to say, he is probably the most intelligent Biology teacher I've had in all my schooling, and this will be the first day I actually kind of listen to what he's saying, as he is now speaking down to my level.

Anyway, coming back to my Duke post... I realize that I am wrong to despise Duke more than other programs of the same nature. If you're a coach in college basketball, you're goal is to win the national championship, and that's what Coach K did. He changed his program to fit what would be the best way to win the championship, so he evolved with what college basketball has turned into. He still has class off the court, I have nothing against Coach K except his incessant whining at officials. So congrats to Duke and Coach K, you have done what it takes to be successful in your genre.

My gripe is with the college game in general. It has turned into the AAU league of colleges, where the individual is greater than the game and the team. But I'm not surprised, as the goal for college basketball players is to play at the next level, whether it be the NBA or some professional league.

I'm done for now, I will go back to listening to Dr. Meldrum, as it's a more in-depth version of the special I saw on the Nat-Geo Channel that I watched in the days when I had cable television. I must be de-evolving, soon I'll give up electricity in general and use a steam powered cell-phone.

I was trying to get a picture of Buford's eye now that the stitches have been pulled and it's healed up nicely, but to no avail. Seriously, if you've never tried to take a picture of a cat then you won't understand the extreme difficulty of getting the dirty SOB to look in the direction of the camera so you can take a nice photo instead of some jittery, unfocused, and part of the cat you'd rather not see. I gave up. There's his eye-hole, and that's the best pic I got as I don't have the patience to take 1000 pictures to maybe get one that I think is decent. So yes, he's stupid looking.

Coming back to an older post that I had published on the abomination known as the "snuggie," I saw the pet ones on sale for 3 bucks and caved in and bought a couple so I could put them on my dogs and mock them insessantly, as I have no life and just do mean things to entertain myself.

Lexah isn't smart enought to know that she's being humiliated and thinks she's styling in her new pink robe of shame. However, Avery, with some semblance of intelligence, knows to be ashamed and knows to feel like an idiot, so he does. See the embarrassment eminate from Aves like a fountain of unkempt Snugginess.

I feel that I got six dollars worth of entertainment from my purchase, and Lexah actually likes wearing hers to keep her warm. Who knew? Raise the roof, Lexah, you dirty little orange traitor.

I applied for a concealed weapons license, and they actually give you a license like the driver's permit, so I've been growing out my beard for like 6 weeks. I got the phone call today to go in and get my picture taken, so I took off my glasses, and ruffed up my hair, but the lady taking the picture gave me a really dirty look so I put my hair back to normal, but I'm still proud of my mountain-man-esque NRA-looking license. Partake of another part of my strange entertainment (via camera phone, hence the poor quality):


Yeah, I'm fixin on putting out some traps to see if I can't get a few good pelts to exchange at the trading post. I was gonna shoot me a squirrel, but I figured I'd let it fatten up a bit 'fore I git on to shootin and eatin it.

I have to admit, I was conflicted as the NCAA tournament brackets were announced. I was for many years an avid and extremely outspoken Duke fan and supporter. I loved the way they played team offense, the way they played team defense, how Coach K had class on and off the court. But it all changed a couple of years ago as I was forced to see the changes that were happening to Duke and it's program, not to mention the game of college basketball in general...

The Blue Devils left their unique sets of offenses and went to a dribble, dribble, dribble, then dribble again offense, which featured the individual and not the team, which featured no offense, only what the dribbler created. Bob Knight has to have disowned Coach K by now, allowing Duke to dribble the air out of the ball even though he was taught better under the tutelage of one of the most fundamental coaches in the history of the game.

Duke then focused less on fundamental defense and just tried to make the big plays instead of all the small things. It was either get a steal, take a charge, or give up points. Not the hard-nosed defense that made the offense use the whole shot clock to get up an average shot.

And the last straw, being a coach myself, I couldn't watch Coach K sit and cry at the officials the whole game. THE WHOLE GAME. Yeah, people say he has class, but shouldn't he have class on the court as well? I hate coaching against guys who scream at the official the whole game as it takes away from what's happening on the court. Seriously, pick your moments, and focus on your kids instead of the officials. Take a lesson from a coach with class, Brad Stevens of Butler.

I had always heard the Duke detractors saying that Duke got all the calls, and I didn't care that they were right because Duke was my team, and I like my team getting all the calls. But it was true. And this past year I finally stood up and renounced Duke, which I'm sure would be like Tom Cruise renouncing Scientology, not likely and hard to do as it would involve a massive amount of crow-eating.

So when Duke got put in the easiest bracket in the history of the NCAA, I had a little regression of heart and contemplated bandwagonning Duke because it was a shoe-in for them to make it the the Final Four. I could pretend to be happy and cheer for a winning team to be tied to a winning program (which meant I was a winner too, right?), or I could stand my principles and cheer for the teams that deserved credit, that fought through adversity, and teams that would possibly fail because of the difficult path they faced. I chose principles because, I mean, come on... The committee must have a man-crush on Coach K, or the Duke boosters must have bought the committee a night at Scores or some other like-wise sleezy strip joint. Maybe Coach K blackmailed them, I don't know, but how does the top seed (Kansas) not get the winner of the play-in game, which is supposed to be the weakest team in the field? And Kansas had murders row to play through, the toughest bracket by far... and I don't even like Kansas and I can see this?!

The truth is that the college game is ruined. Coach K sold out on his beliefs in order to follow the crowd and trends of the new AAU-college-individual-glory game. It's the reason Bob Knight doesn't coach anymore, the NCAA is trying to be the NBA, allowing kids to travel instead of pivot properly. All tournament long I watched officials make horrible calls against the underdogs to try and salvage face for the committee and the NCAA. Promoting "stars" that are only in college for one year, and just because they had to come and play for one year because the NBA won't let them jump from high school, John Wall. Promoting coaches who cheat and have been caught cheating, Calipari and Huggins, to get players who cheated, Derrick Rose and John Wall.

I will find a new past-time, I'm guessing it will be at the Mid-Major tournaments, NAIA's, and NWAACC's of the basketball world. As for now, I find solace in the few teams like Butler, who play together, who defend as if their life depends on it, and who show that a team will always be greater than the individual in what is supposed to be ante-professional basketball with a goal of team college glory instead of an individual's self-serving path to the professional NBA. A Butler team with no nationally recruited players, let's be honest, Duke's 12th man and all of Duke's red-shirts were more highly recruited than Butler's best players, Hayward or Mack. I imagine Duke's waterboy, towel boy, and floor sweeper were more highly recruited than Mack as a basketball player.

This is a Duke team with 8 McDonald's All-American's, and honestly, shouldn't Duke, UNC, Kentucky, and the big-name schools be considered failures for not being in the Final Four every year for the amount of talent they amass? The wasted potential and under-achievement baffles me when these big-name school's recruit the best talent in the high school world and do not make it to at least the Elite 8 every year. Look at UNC this year, all that talent and didn't even make the tournament? That is the equivalent to having the answers to an exam, the professor telling you the answers during the test, and still walking out with a giant "F" tattooed on your paper. Not only getting a failing grade, but getting paid millions by the institution to fail that year, even with the answers in hand.

This is why I cannot support Dook and the Dook's that are ruining the college game that I grew up loving and emmulating. The college game used to be basketball at it's most pure level, kids and a coach in it for each other... to be honest, I don't know if there is any pure basketball left at any level as they all seek to be the replica of the level directly situated above the other, leading to the travesty of unpurity in basketball, the NBA.