Written By Courtney Waldon

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Big Week Ahead

This past week was a big week for the team. Two wins against those nerds from Evanston, Illinois and the outdated warriors from East Lansing has put the ladies in perfect position in the conference with a matchup against Penn State looming February 3rd. They sit one game behind the Nittany Lions in the B1G standings. That's a good strategy, because you never want to be in front of Penn State. Just when you least expect it, they'll sneak up and come from behind. Of course, I'm strictly speaking of a situation where Purdue is leading the conference with a few games to play and lose it to Penn State. What did you think I was talking about? But first, the team has to get a win against Indiana this Thursday. The Hoosiers aren't the strongest team, so I don't expect a loss in Mackey Arena against them.

Last week was a stellar performance for the RIP Squad in preparation for both Northwestern and Michigan State. We didn't even have to look at the scouting report to know that the Wildcats have the highest team GPA in the country (this may be a completely absurd fact and have no truth in it whatsoever. Yes, we ran the scout team against the girls in practice, but it was our work off the floor that made the difference. I can't necessarily speak for the rest of the guys, but I can tell you I attended every class, took notes like a fiend, and studied. For some reason I feel like we should do this every week. But, when the day is done, the team pulled out a win against Northwestern, which means we did our job.

Michigan State brought a bit more of a challenge. Like I said in my last post, they came in ranked 25th in the country. I also said they wouldn't be ranked this week, and wouldn't you know it, they're not (Nostradamus has nothing on me). It comes to no surprise to everyone that the win came in another overtime game. It was a grind of a game with both teams going back and forth for the majority of the game. Had Sam Ostarello not been sicker than a dog, overtime may not have been necessary. I was really hoping she would play like Michael Jordan did when he was sick (38 points in the playoffs, top that LeBron), but she didn't. These overtimes have become something of a norm for the team. Coach Versyp might as well stop practice five minutes early so the team becomes used to playing five minutes less in games. This would satisfy a number of people, including me.

With yesterday off, we started preparing for the next two games today. I usually like to wear long sleeves under my practice jersey because it keeps me warm when Mackey Arena or the new Cardinal gymnasium is cold during the winter. Today's weather brought in warmer temperatures (around 60) which made the gym warmer than usual. Knowing this would be the case, I made a poor decision to wear the long sleeves. I walked in the gym, took three shots, and I was already sweating like a fat man in a sauna. It was brutal, my body temperature had to be 200 degrees. I head over to the water cooler to try to combat this feeling that I was on fire, and I wish The Waterboy was there to hand me some high quality H2O. I eventually cooled myself down to a respectable temperature, then I hear the coaches call us down to the other side of the floor. Usually we just assist with shooting drills for the first part of practice, so I prepared myself for that (I just stand under the basket). What really happened was quite the contrary.

In high school, when I heard the words "defensive slides", a part of me died. So, to hear those same words to begin practice today nearly killed me. We have never been told to do defensive slides, ever. The only drill we do is zig-zags (dribbling the ball back and forth with a defender on you) against the girls. We only did this for three minutes, but I swear it felt like an eternity. I was worried the coaches were disappointed at our defensive effort in practice (what effort?) but turns out they were just wanting to get us warmed up for the day. I took this as meaning that we were going to be playing a lot of defense. For me, focusing on defense for more than about a 10 minute span is harder than hitting a golf ball with your eyes closed. But, I fight through because I'm a team player.

I'll more than likely be back later this week after the girls pull out a victory against the Hoosiers to talk more about the days leading up to Penn State. If you didn't catch on earlier, it's going to be a big game. Not only could it tie us with the Nittany Lions at the top of the B1G, but it also gives us the tie-breaker over them if we happen to tie at the end of the season because we only play them once. Tune in tomorrow night to watch our men's team play against Dwight Schrute and his band of Loosiers (and that guy with a nose like Pinocchio when he lies).



Monday, January 21, 2013

The Always Improving

As I sit here in my apartment with Manti Te'o's girlfriend looking at the thermostat that reads slightly below freezing, I realize that I missed on my prediction about the team going undefeated in the Big 10 this year. Then again, undefeated teams in sports are boring and fascist, like strikeouts in baseball. Unless you're a fan of Connecticut or Baylor, you weren't at all excited about the seasons they went undefeated. The majority of America hates teams that win all the time, such as the New York Yankees and Duke's men's basketball team. Although I'm sure a loss at Iowa wasn't exactly pleasing to the team, just remember that eight NBA teams have lost to the Washington Wizards this year, so it happens.

I explained in my last post about the week leading up to Ohio State and how I portrayed their leading scorer. Turns out, I should have gotten the flu and sat on the sideline all week, as this is what Tayler Hill did against them last week. I get the feeling that I took an unhealthy amount of unnecessary shots in a period of four days, and then I remember I did what I was told and don't feel the slightest bit of regret. Word around the gym (I would say around the locker room like a normal teammate but I'd guess if I said that it would raise some suspicion and it wouldn't turn out well) is the team found out Hill wasn't playing until right before game time. I credit this and only this as the reason they went into multiple overtimes against the Buckeyes. I suspect Hill wasn't actually sick, but their head coach made her sit to play mind games with Coach Versyp's squad. This probably isn't a very likely situation, but we can all dream (how great is it that I worked the word dream into my blog on Martin Luther King Jr Day).

While I was waiting for some of the players to come out of the locker room after the game, I saw former Purdue standout Stephanie White getting ready to leave from announcing the game for the Big 10 Network. When I was in first grade, White did a basketball camp at Lafayette Jeff with my dad who was coaching the girls program there at the time. If I remember correctly, the camp was for fourth and fifth graders. Being the stud I was (if anyone would like to explain what happened from then to now, I'm all ears), I was allowed to participate in most parts of the camp. You could say that it was my destiny to play basketball with girls. I'm sort of like Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon who declares himself the "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion". In my case, I'm a "Inter-Gender Basketball Champion" of sorts. I introduced myself to her and she remembered me (who wouldn't remember the only boy who participated in a girls camp?). We had a nice conversation about an internship opportunity with the Indiana Fever (where she coaches now). But, that is neither here nor there. I figured this would be a good time to tell a personal story of mine.

After the Ohio State win, the team began preparing for a so called improving Minnesota group. Improving is probably the right word because they weren't much of a match for the ladies. I would love to say that we practice guys prepared them incredibly well, but I'd be lying. The Golden Gophers' offense consists of a lot of cutting and filling spots on the perimeter. When we would cut during drills and other segments of practice, it was mandatory that we run into each other at least twice. This is not at all how Minnesota ran the offense during the game. It was probably the worst job we've done of running the scout team. Luckily, the girls came to play against the Gophers. The girls played so well that at some points it was like Minnesota had Lennay Kekua playing for them (that's two if you're counting).

According to announcers across America, every team that plays Purdue is improving. This makes me worried for the team because if the media doesn't say they're improving, then they aren't, right? Of course, Iowa is another improving team, an improving team who seemed to shoot a ridiculously high percentage from the field during the first half. Combine that with a rough start for the girls and you have a 20-point deficit at halftime. They only had one day after Minnesota to prepare for this ever improving Iowa team (tired of hearing how they're improving? So was I) so I partly blamed the events on that. The other part I blame on the fact that one of Iowa's players' mother is a Big 10 Network analyst. In other words, I'm saying the game was fixed from the beginning. The girls fought back in the second half to make it interesting, only to have their comeback efforts thwarted on the worst charge call I have ever seen.

To set the scene, freshman center Taylor Manuel catches the ball in the post almost right under the basket. Remember, NCAA basketball now has the circle under the basket that a player can't stand in and take a charge. That reminder is mostly for the referee crew of that game. Manuel spins over her left shoulder to shoot a right-handed layup, and Iowa's center falls toward the Purdue bench while standing in the dead center of the circle. I've always said the team wearing the white jerseys (the home team) gets the calls, and this was never more evident than that play. This essentially ended the last run Purdue was able to make and fell 62-46.

The RIP Squad will be back at it this week preparing for Northwestern and Michigan, two assuredly improving teams. Hopefully we decrease the number of concussions our guys get in practice and actually help the girls in some way. Michigan State has improved (last time I promise) so much so that they crept into the Top 25 rankings this week. The bad news for them is they probably won't be in the Top 25 next week. To decipher that, they're going to lose Sunday when the Boilers come to town.

Happy online dating and see you next week.

Friday, January 11, 2013

The Hobbit, But Not Really

I haven't gone into great detail about how or why the idea of RIP Squad Pains came to be. Since I've already written five different posts, telling this story is basically the RIP Squad version of The Hobbit. So, I might as well drop some knowledge on you to start. To paraphrase a series of quotes from Inception (a movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio's plays the same type of character he has played in every movie since Titanic), an idea is the most resilient parasite, can transform the world and rewrite all the rules, and be stolen by someone. I make this reference because the idea of this RIP Squad Pains idea first came from me. Taylor Jenkinson, a senior member of the practice squad last year, went deep into my brain and stole my idea. Actually, to be honest, I said in the locker room one day "Guys, we should make a Twitter account about what we do and call it like RIP Squad Pains or something cool like that." I swear, that night I get a new follower on my Twitter called "RIP Squad Pains". My genius idea had been stolen. I knew it was Taylor because I texted him asking if he took my idea and I got no response until the next time I saw him and he bursted out laughing. The icing on the cake was he wouldn't give me the account information so I could take over last year. He legitimately committed intellectual property theft and wouldn't admit it (exactly like how Mark Zuckerberg stole the Winklevoss twins' idea in The Social Network, and I guess in real life). The only difference here is, he finally gave me the login information at the beginning of this season and I finally have what is deservedly mine. So now when I become filthy rich off this idea, I don't have to go to court with anyone.

If there's one thing we learned from watching the Nebraska game, it's that senior center Drey Mingo has passed the MCAT's, has applied to Emory University in her hometown Atlanta, Georgia and that Emory should "just go ahead and accept her already". If you watched the game, you know that CBS announcer Debbie Antonelli mentioned this series of facts at least 15 times, and that is not an exaggeration in the slightest bit. Nebraska missed their first 16 shots and looked like a fifth grade elementary gym class team for the first eight minutes. Of course, by the time the Cornhuskers made their first field goal, Antonelli had mentioned Mingo and Emory together in the same sentence five times, wrote a letter of recommendation for her, and joined Emory's review board to accept her.  Once they decided warmups were over and they were a quarter into the game, Nebraska made it game worth watching (at this point Branden Dawson had already punched Travis Carroll in the Michigan State vs Purdue men's game on Big Ten Network). As this obsession with Mingo was going on, senior Sam Ostarello was, as Antonelli continued to say over and over again, "silently killing the Cornhuskers". I'm not sure, but I wouldn't say that Ostarello was still "silently" beating Nebraska when she has 17 points and 19 rebounds and the game is about over, yet Antonelli insisted that it was silent (I said she was silent but deadly, kind of like something else). I'm not going to explain the rest of the game because you can read a newspaper to find out what happened (they obviously won). You chose to read this because...well, I'm actually not sure why.

In a week where hockey unfortunately signed a bargaining agreement, Alabama showed why cousins are absolutely better than Catholics, and an entire era of Major League Baseball was apparently played without a Hall of Famer, the RIP squad crew has been back at it. I'd like to point out that I'm currently still on track in predicting the girls' undefeated Big 10 season. It may have taken one overtime apiece at both Illinois and Nebraska, but a win is a win (I know it is cliche and used by anyone who thinks they know sports but it applies here). The win at Nebraska was especially important, and it gave more publicity to the team (CBS broadcasted it, kind of a big deal) more than this blog ever could even though Purdue's student newspaper The Exponent just started including my blog on a weekly basis. 

Its been a busy week for us, we had Monday off because we had such a tough weekend of doing nothing. Tuesday, on the other hand, was one of those practices that I wish I would've been sick or injured (then again how could I be injured, and if I was nobody would care). Since the next game for the team is against Ohio State, the coaches told us what players we were and their style of play. I was dubbed as, supposedly, Ohio State's best player Tayler Hill. Coach Versyp's exact words were, "Courtney is Tayler Hill for the next 800 days." I found this to be totally preposterous because for one, she's a senior and will more than likely have a job in 800 days, and two, this Hill girl doesn't play for every team so I don't understand why I have to be her when the team plays Penn State and Wisconsin, for example. Anyway, I feel bad for Hill because she is more than likely going to get chased like a three legged cat running from a pack of dogs. I'm not saying I didn't get any shots off and didn't score in practice, because I hit my fair share of tough shots, but most people (guys for the most part) don't understand how good these girls are on defense. I've given the girls enough credit for one post, so its time to move on to Thursday. I missed practice Wednesday and I don't have a scout to tell me what happened. So if you're bummed about not knowing what happened during Wednesday's practice, I suggest you take a hike.

Thursday's events are the reason we show up to practice every other day. Thursday, was scrimmage day. We scrimmaged against the girls for a solid hour and a half, and to put it lightly, we got hosed at our own place. We couldn't catch a break with the referees, and I don't know who hired them, but they looked identical to the assistant coaches. I was clearly fouled on a shot and all the referee said to Liza Clemons was "you can't foul him like that". I responded by asking the referee (assistant Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton) if she swallowed her whistle and I got no response. We were playing a game we couldn't win. Sure we missed some shots around the basket that we should've made, but we don't do drills to make ourselves better (unless you're me practicing Dirk Nowitzki shots for no reason). The assistants gave us three plays that Ohio State has to run against the girls in the scrimmage, and it only took about five minutes for them to figure out that every play was essentially for me. Again, I hit my share of shots (probably more than the girls would like to admit), but I will say they got us probably four out of the seven segments we played. They didn't blow us out, that's never going to happen. We're a lot like the Butler men's team, except Brad Stevens isn't our coach and they would probably beat us by 60 in a real game. It was frustrating to lose like that, but tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow would actually be today and we had the day off so that statement makes no sense. 

To end this latest installment of RIP Squad Pains, I'd like to give Ethan Foxworthy a shout out. Ethan finished his managing duties over Christmas break and is now student teaching some poor, unfortunate souls (just kidding dude). I'd like to say that not only do I miss having Ethan around, but apparently so does Coach Versyp because one of the managers messed up the clock during practice the other day and the volume of her voice rose substantially. On that note, tune in next week for more and do yourself a favor by picking up a copy of The Exponent next Thursday.

For the last time, Roll Tide

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

New Year Resolutions

For the record, I never once bought into the fact that the world would end in 2012. I found it about as ludicrous as Ludacris (clever, I know). So, when I stepped out of my makeshift bunker made of four chairs and a blanket in my family room, I immediately removed anything I learned about the Mayans from my brain because they lost all credibility, kind of like how Lou Holtz will lose what little credibility he has when Alabama rolls over Notre Dame in the National Championship. In the words of the lifetime, and somewhat mentally insane, Alabama fan (Harvey Updyke) who poisoned the Toomer's Corner trees on Auburn's campus, Roll Damn Tide! The important thing here is we all survived December 21, 2012 by doing nothing more than what we do on a daily basis, which for me was watching the team play IUPUI (obviously Purdue doesn't play IUPUI every day but I figured I would clear that up for those of you who have an IQ equal to that of Forrest Gump's). 

This is probably a good time to give an update on the ladies' season for you people who don't really follow them (and if you don't follow them religiously I pity you). With an 11-2 record and the two losses being to number one and five Connecticut and Notre Dame, respectively, the team begins Big 10 play tonight against Illinois. I'm going to go on record and say they'll finish undefeated in the conference during the season. You're probably thinking, "That's a bold statement Courtney, I highly doubt that will happen." You're right, it is bold, but I figure that if the girls can guard our group of practice guys, they can guard whatever Penn State and Nebraska throw at them. If they don't finish undefeated, I'll admit I was wrong and go on with my life. But, if they finish undefeated, anyone who reads this post will donate $10 to my college fund. I will, in fact, track every one of you down. I have a very particular set of skills that I've acquired after watching both Taken movies, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. 

At this point, I really wish I had a new, funny story about practice to tell. But, the fact is practice has been somewhat uneventful over break. I really haven't done much except drink Gatorade and talk to the managers. With that said, I've decided to share my experiences at the team banquets so far. As a sophomore, I've only been to three, but let me tell you those three have provided more than enough entertainment. If you played a high school sport, you're banquets were probably really, really lame. Like, lame as in people brought KFC and Pizza Hut for dinner because they were too lazy to cook, and these people were probably the parents of your lazy ass teammates. Somebody always brought some kind of casserole dish that looked so awful everybody made a face and scooted away from it as they walked down the line. I always believed dessert was the way to go because, for one, everybody likes dessert, and two, even if you bring a bad dessert, its still better than 75% of the main dishes brought. Then, after you ate the three things that looked like it wouldn't give you chronic diarrhea, your coach got up and talked...and talked...and talked about the season. My high school basketball banquet always happened to fall on the Sunday of the final round of the Masters. So, naturally, I would put my phone in my lap and watch Tiger and Phil go at it and fist pump along with them. I got the "put your damn phone away" look from my mother but I didn't care. I was just passing the time until I got my letter then I could get out of there. 

Purdue being the classy university that it is, takes athletic banquets to a new level. The first one I attended was the preseason banquet last season and was held in the Ross Ade Stadium press box. I had only been practicing with the team for a couple weeks at the time, so I wasn't sure how things worked and what people wore to these banquets. I decided to play it safe and go with a dress shirt and tie Good decision right? Well, other than one of the assistant coaches, I was the only person under 60 years old wearing a tie. The other practice guys were wearing a polo and dress pants. In fact, I believe Jed Hasselbring (fellow practice bitch, you'll be hearing his name from time to time, so learn it) was wearing white Jordan's. I felt about as out of place as Kobe Bryant in a room full of the NBA's greatest passers. 

They sat the practice squad and the managers at the back two tables in the room, which was fine by me because we were the closest to the buffet line and made it easier when I went back for seconds and thirds and maybe fourths. I figured I would be sitting with the rest of the practice guys, but that would only make sense right? I got the s-h-i-t end of the stick and got stuck with one other practice guy (which was fine) and six fans who apparently wanted to play an extended version of 20 questions with us called 10,000 questions. Like I said, I hadn't been practicing with the team for long, so I knew next to nothing about the team and barely knew who was who. They kept asking Corbin (the other practice guy) and I these questions about the players and how good we thought the team was going to be. Luckily I've had a lot of practice when it comes to making things up, I get a lot of chances in the classroom and it finally paid off. I fed them  I distinctly remember how these ladies were obsessed with point guard KK Houser, but the problem was they kept calling her Kiki. I didn't have the guts to correct them and sort of wanted this to continue because it was very entertaining but eventually it became annoying. I kept looking at the table next to us with everyone else and they were just having the time of their life watching me lose my mind. It was like being stuck at the kids table at a family gathering and looking over at the adult table thinking how cool it would be to sit with the cool people. 

The last two banquets have been at the Four Points by Sheraton in West Lafayette, which ironically is where my high school also held a banquet for the top 50 students in my graduating class (I happened to be at table one). College banquets differ from high school banquets in multiple ways. The most obvious being the food. I give props to the Sheraton, they don't serve KFC and Pizza Hut. Its usually some kind of meat with red potatoes and green beans. They give us the dessert on our table at the beginning which I believe is code for dessert first. Someone at my table always ends up without a chocolate cake and never knows why. The best part of these banquets is by far the rolls, and anyone who has ever been at one of these banquets will back me up. In fact, they're so good I slipped a $5 bill into the waiter's pocket (big spender) to keep a steady dose of them coming our way. 

The team banquet usually consists of Coach Versyp saying some words, as well as athletic director Morgan Burke and radio announcer Tim Newton. Then comes story time from the players, a time when they share team events with a group of people who paid to sit, eat, and listen to their idols speak. If you're expecting me to remember a particular story told by one of the players, you should realize that's not my job. I will say this, I sat next to the kid who wears the Purdue Pete costume at the last banquet and it ruined my childhood, kind of like finding out Santa...well never mind. Purdue Pete always seemed real even though his head isn't at all proportionate to his body. 

As we enter the new year and you all break your resolutions this month, I have big plans for the blog. The biggest being that The Exponent, Purdue's student newspaper, will be including parts of my blog posts on a weekly basis beginning next week. From there, I plan on getting interviews with ESPN and 60 Minutes. I don't think getting Erin Andrews to interview me is asking too much. College football season is practically over and she's bound to be bored. Maybe I'll be offered a job to write nonsense for a magazine, which would really make getting my education at Purdue somewhat pointless. At this point you've figured out this post has absolutely nothing to do with New Year resolutions. But, I got you to read this far because you thought I would have a witty and interesting resolution. Sorry to disappoint, but I don't.

Happy New Year and Roll Tide