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