NIT Analysis

A disappointing week for sports as Northwestern ended its season in Tulsa in the first round of the NIT, the Honkballers fell to the U.S. in the World Baseball Classic, in the U.S. fell to Japan in the quarterfinals.

NIT WRAP-UP

The 'Cats lost another winnable game as they folded down the stretch and Tulsa's Uzoh and Jordan took over in the second half. They got into some turnover trouble and could not handle the intense, bug-eyed leer of Tulsa head coach Doug Wojcik who looks like his pre-game ritual involves taking piles of trucker-approved amphetamines and putting his forehead through various objects.

Wojcik springs into action after
spotting a pledge pin on a uniform

Wildcat fans also got short shrift, as we got stuck watching a double-overtime Duqesne-Viriginia Tech game that took up most of the first half and would have been thrilling if it didn't happen during the NIT or prevent me from watching Kevin Coble throw down off-balance one legged lefty scoop shots. We also got announcer Dickey Simpkins who spent the entire game shouting meaningless basketball cliches instead of using the broadcast to spout a venomous string of uncalled-for personal attacks on Jud Buechler from their days of battling to be the last guy on the Bulls' playoff roster during the second Three-Peat run.

The Buechler-Simpkins rivalry was the most compelling
subplot of the Bulls' second dynasty fuelled mainly by
Buechler's refusal to teach Simpkins how to fly up and
down the court on an invisible surfboard

Dickey Simpkins actually started on those abysmal 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 Bulls teams, and his Basketball Reference Page also reveals that his full name is the unparalleled LuBara Dixon Simpkins. Simpkins also now runs a training center in the Chicago suburbs, and his page includes a tremendous highlight reel as well as a fantastic demonstration of defense and offense.

FIXING THE NIT

The end of the 'Cats season is somewhat disappointing, although losing in the NIT is a less bitter pill than falling off the bubble for the NCAA tourney. Making the postseason was an important step, and frankly, performance in the NIT is essentially irrelevant. Having the NIT and other second-tier tournaments at the same time as the NCAA essentially kills all interest in them once the Madness starts up. The NIT has the right idea by kicking off on Wednesday to snag those who cannot wait one more day for their basketball fix, but after that, the tournament vanishes into background like another drunkard in Hogarth's Gin Lane lithograph.

Gin? What do I look like, a pox-ridden baby tosser?

If they want to make the NIT a ratings winner, they should condense the tournament into a single day on Wednesday by having the winners immediately play their next games with no break until only one team remains standing. They can start at 5:00 in the morning and crown the champion sometime early Thursday, with the exhausted champions carried out off the court onto a waiting parade float. It will give terrified walk-ons a chance to get some tournament experience sometime in the third or fourth consecutive game, and would definitely be a compelling lead-in to the NCAA tournament. Richard Dawson can host the whole thing, and they can get 500 people to shake money during the entire time.

A few minor changes make the NIT a must-watch
tournament, another sensible idea from BYCTOM

LET'S GO BELOW THE BORDER FOR SOME SOUTH AMERICAN JIVE

Tico Tico No Fubá is not just a jazz standard, but apparently some sort of mid-century musical phenomenon. The peppy Brazilian piece was written in 1917 by Zequinha de Abreu, but became popular in the US with its use in Disney's Saludos Amigos in the 1940s, after which musicians began rushing to cover it the way indie rock bands ironically flock to the A-Ha catalogue. The tune is fairly infectious, although an awkwardly phrased translation of the lyrics includes the phrase:

This tico-tico - he's the cuckoo in my clock.
And when he says: "Cuckoo!" he means it's time to woo

This WFMU blog entry cataloging 61 versions of Tico Tico remains consistently riveting. The blog has downloadable versions from luminaries such as Les Paul and Henry Mancini, as well as from the greatest all-harmonica outfit of all time, the Harmonicats.

The Harmonicats were born from an experiment to test
whether it would be more disconcerting for someone
to pull a tommie gun or a giant harmonica out of a
nondescript leather case

The Lucien Jeneusse version remains a personal favorite, but you would be doing yourself a personal disservice if you didn't drop what you are doing (including a small child if you are located near a supply of gin and a precarious wooden staircase) and download the Shooby Taylor version. I don't want to ruin too much, but it's a must have in the fusion genre combining scat singing and grand mal seizures.

Also of interest is Raymond Scott's version, not because it is particularly good but because Raymond Scott himself is a fascinating guy, putting together odd, quasi-jazz orchestral recordings in the late 1930s that were taken by Warner Brothers musical director Carl Stalling and used as the backbone of Looney Tunes soundtracks, most notably using the second half of Powerhouse as ubiquitous "factory music." Scott was also a notable pioneer in electronic music, and he dedicated his mature years to developing synthesizers and an electronic composing machine he called the Electronium.

Scott built his Electronium (right) after an unfortunate discovery that whirring tape
machines cannot be used for any purpose other than space lasers

At best, Tico Tico is a whirling cascade of notes, which is most effectively demonstrated by Ethel Smith, the "first lady of the organ," who gets down with her backing band, which I have dubbed the Squarenado.

Finally

Northwestern finally won a close home game, beating Ohio State 72-69, ending a 17-game losing streak against the Buckeyes, and keeping hope alive for the post-season. The game looked like it would end again in heartbreak since the 'Cats continued to struggle against pressure defenses in late games, but Shurna managed to hit the dagger with three seconds left. Kevin Coble led the 'Cats with 26 points, 4 boards, and total world terror engulfment.

Big Ten teams beware, the Mantis has been unleashed
and this Kevin Coble should have the nickname
"Mantis" running joke is showing no signs of relenting.
He's tall! He's spindly! He scores a bunch of points and
according to the trailer for this movie, the stern-voiced
scientist character played by one of those grave-looking
characterless 1950s actors who played either scientists
or ineffectual army commanders who keep ordering
their men to fire at the monster with conventional
weapons, in all of Mother Nature there is no creature
more deadly nor voracious [head nod] than the praying
mantis, so there's clearly a basketball link somewhere
in there and all of this makes an enormous amount of
sense.

AN AFFRONT TO BASKETBALL

Elsewhere in the Big Ten and continuing the theme of the unleashing of prehistoric terror, Penn State upended the Illini by the score of 38-33. The Big Ten Network characterizes it as a "defensive struggle" instead of a gross insult that would surely cause James Naismith to recoil in horror at what had happened to his beloved game, although in fairness he would probably also recoil in horror that basketball was no longer a lawn sport for matronly women.


An early ad for the Nike Naismith Zoom Wingtip, forerunner to the
Chuck Taylor, the Air Jordan, and the Starbury DNP-CD.

This was certainly not Penn State's first experience with bizarre and improbably low-scoring games. Their football team lost to Iowa 6-4 in 2004, a result of a turn back the clock promotion that banned the forward pass and replaced all stadium concessions with Victory Cabbage.


Penn State and Iowa train for their game with a regimen of gymnastics
and weighted semaphores

LEADER OF ALL ETHNIC TURKMEN

Today is February 19th, the birthday of the late Saparmurat Niyazov, best known as Turkmenbashi, the founder and President of Turkmenistan as well as the Association of Turkmens of the World. Turkmenistan broke from the Soviet Union in 1991 and Niyazov, like so many other Central Asian rulers, made the effortless switch from local Soviet strongman to ardent nationalist. It's a path similar to that of Uzbekistan president Karimov, who has the cheerful habit of boiling dissidents alive. At least, according to Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who objected to Britain's support of Karimov, was ousted from his post, and wrote about the whole thing in Muder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror although some versions have the more evocative title Dirty Diplomacy: The Rough-and-Tumble Adventures of a Scotch-Drinking, Skirt-Chasing, Dictator-Busting and Thoroughly Unrepentant Ambassador Stuck on the Frontline of the War Against Terror. In the book, Murray provides scathing criticism of British (and American) hypocrisy in the war on terror by supporting thugs such as Karimov as well as the occasional glamor shot of his Uzbek mistress.



Nadira Murray (left) stars in a one-act play at the Arcola theater. The play promises
to reveal "the politics, the dirty tricks, the shenanigans, the journey from
ambassadorial palace to rented flat in Shepherds Bush and Craig's obsession with
Dennis the Menace ties. This will be their unadulterated story." You can also see
Murder in Samarkand: The Movie, starring Nadira and Steve Coogan, coming in 2011.

Turkmenbashi one-upped Karimov by developing a truly astonishing cult of personality around himself. He renamed the months in the calendar, claiming January as Turkmenbashi and April Gurbansoltan after his mother, banned the ownership of more than one pet by citing laws against herds, and, of course, built a giant golden statue of himself in Ashgabat that rotates to constantly face the sun.


A medley of Turkmenbashi golden statues. The rightmost statue tops the Neutrality Arch,
celebrating Turkmenistan's splendid isolation

Until his death in 2006, Turkmenbashi filled the important of role of doing ridiculous dictator things. For example, he banned the use of car radios and recorded music at concerts, and demanded that doctors recant the Hippocratic Oath in order to swear an oath to him. In a full-on Bananas touch, he ordered government ministers to climb up an eight mile path through the hills on Health Day, while he would meet them at the top via helicopter. These, and more anecdotes, can be found in a wonderful article for the Times by Waldemar Januszczak, a filmmaker who made a documentary on Turkmenistan, gaining access to the country by claiming he and his crew were on a stag party. Given the vast amount of damage per hectare inflicted on any nation by an average British Stag party (measured in total headbutt output), I'm shocked that they got in. A brief snippet of his film can be seen here. It's these sort of things that land someone on Parade magazine's hilarious annual "Ten Worst Dictators" feature, which is like the BCS rankings of dictatorship that conveniently appears next to produce circulars in your Sunday paper.

Of course, the key to Turkmenbashi's personality cult is the Ruhnama, a pink-bound book of philosophy, history, and assorted wisdom written by Turkmenbashi and required reading for people who want to hold office or drive. The full text is conveniently available, and, as page 208 states: "Rukhnama is our way! Every Turkman will know himself after reading Rukhnama. Peoples of our other nations will understand and know the Turkman after reading the Rukhnama!" Turkmenbashi named a month after the book, and also, in a sort of standard dictator behavior that transcends time and place like how European monks inevitably built bone churches as part of some monk default setting, made it into an enormous statue.

Turkmenbashi announces the creation of new Turkmenistan gameshow "Who
Wants to Quote From the Giant Pink Book I Wrote?" on state television network
"You Are Watching This"

Today, Turkmenistan is in the hands of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, Turkmenbashi's Deputy Prime Minister and former personal dentist. Though Turkmenistan is not experiencing anything like de-Stalinization under Khrushchev, Berdimuhamedow is rolling back some of the excessive personality cult ephemera, but some For example, "Melon Day" is still celebrated. Berdimuhamedow may be yet another legacy of Niyazov, as he's rumored to be Turkmenbashi's illegitimate son due to "the striking physical resemblance between the two men."

So in honor of Turkmenbashi and his curious regime, I suggest the following arbitrary and unncessary laws be put into place:

• NCAA basketball games where no team scores more than 40 points are now illegal. The offending teams will be forced to settle the games in a slamball arena surrounded by the type of sweaty men in full operation of the incomprehensible Van Damme movie betting system that involves shaking money .
• When possible, all soccer must include elements of horse soccer.
  
• British stag parties are now illegal everywhere but in Turkmenistan and select former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
• Live music at concerts is now banned, replaced by Microsoft Soundsmith, a program that takes a vocal track and builds a backing track based on harmonies so disastrously dissonant and styles so nonsensical that they can only be created by an inhuman computer program that is biding itself to wipe out humanity and initiate a series of mind-bending time travel paradoxes that make even less sense than the semi-apocalyptic Bifftown. Behold the horror:

Shuffle Update

It is particularly generous of the NFL to give everyone a bye week before the Superbowl so that players can rest, coaches can hone their strategies, overzealous mayors can work out inane bets, and bookies' henchmen can order new bats. The weekend paves the way for the NFL hype juggernaut in an attempt to ruin football to the point where our desire to spike things or pour icy gatorade on each other seems pointless. Even if an opposing ballcarrier were to brazenly run through our homes or places of businesses, we become less inclined to stop them with a bone-crunching helmet-to-helmet hit.

Although they existed for centuries as part of the the Rath Yatra, juggernauts today form
only the second deadliest parade vehicle

NOT SHUFFLING

Needless to say, the Bears will not be in the Superbowl this year. The Bears did not even make the playoffs thanks to a truly horrific showing by the defense. I admit that I have no football coaching experience, and I have never played in a football game that did not end with a hapless participant limping off the field shouting "my valve!" or suffering compound nerd fracture, but from my layman's perspective, the something about the defensive scheme seemed off.

Bob Babich's "Cover 2" zone defense

Instead, it will of course be the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals in Tampa Bay. The mayors are already at it, with the mayor of Glendale putting up a cactus, deftly finding a crappy gift that grows indigenously. My favorite part is that it's the mayor of Glendale stepping up. If the Bears had moved to Gary, I guess that the Gary mayor would have had to offer up an extraneous Jackson.

Even though the Bears have not won a Super Bowl since 1985, their legacy of terrible rap videos lives on. No doubt everyone has already seen the original, although I do want to call attention to Steve Fuller, who's inexplicable presence and terrible rapping often escape the attention and analysis he truly deserves. First of all, why does the backup quarterback get an entire verse? The Superbowl Shuffle already goes on far longer than humans should be able to endure, and includes an unnecessary saxophone solo. This would be like the 2008 Bears giving Rex Grossman his own verse, except that Steve Fuller was probably not at the time the funniest person in all of professional football.

Grossman lost his job in the preseason when a
pass attempt somehow ended with him throwing
a bucket full of glitter all over a confused Desmond
Clark

Fuller's verses from the Shuffle include the lyrics:

They say Jimmy is our man
If Jimmy can't do it, I sure can

and

We're not here to feathers ruffle

Mercifully, whatever twisted soul composed the Super Bowl Shuffle must have already passed up lyrics such as "we're not here to root for truffle" or "we're not here to cause kerfuffle."


The Shuffle lyrics were heavily inspired by an obscure
Sir Walter Raleigh poem where he compares settling
Roanoake to "making romance," boasts to "bring
on the Papists, bring on the Spanish, this one 'tis for the
Queen, tho' she doth look mannish," and declaring that
"I'm just here to sport this ruffle"

OTHER SHUFFLES

The Bears Super Bowl created a template in the NFL for winning which included a suffocating defense, a possession offense geared around a hall-of-fame caliber running back, and an abysmal rap video. Taking this to heart, both the L.A. Raiders and the L.A. Rams released rap videos in an unprecedented rap video arms race that ended with Al Davis pounding his shoes on the table in Paul Tagliabue's office, claiming that our grandchildren will wear spiked shoulder pades. The Raiders' video is most notable for the random Matt Millen appearance, while the Rams' questionably titled "Ram It" blows all the other videos away with solid Pointer Sisters dance moves. Unquestionably, the only way for the Rams to have improved on their choreography would have been to add elements of the boogaloo and camel walk as demonstrated by an expert:



My favorite part of the video is James Brown's semi-deranged grin as he randomly throws out dance moves off the top of his head while listening to James Brown. The video cuts off before we see him leaving the room, but I'd like to think that James Brown could not successfully leave a building without Bobby Byrd appearing out of nowhere to drape him in a cape as he finishes writing a check at the grocery store or returning some James Brown DVDs or leaving a drug-addled TV interview where he keeps shouting the names of his own songs.

The video craze seemed to have died in the early '90s when the Miami Dolphins' "Can't Touch Us" ended with half the roster out with strained zubaz. But the problem has extended beyond football. Recently, the Bradley basketball team came out with their shuffle for the 2008-9 season. More disturbingly, non-sports related enterprises unleashed horrifying shuffle attempts, such as this effort by the Southern Food Brokerage. Before we all laugh at these unluckily recorded people, let's remember that this is clearly the result of a hostage situation where a maniac forced the southern, mulleted, and elderly to rap for his amusement or else he would flood the market with generic Teddy Grahams and dunkaroos.



FEATHER STATUS: RUFFLED

On the basketball front, Northwestern notched perhaps the programs' greatest victory last Wednesday on the road in Sparta, thanks to a miraculous ability to hit 30-footers. The Mantis led the Wildcats with 31 points against #7 Michigan State, and the 1-3-1 zone defense forced 18 turnovers. Unfortunately, the 'Cats were unable to build on that momentum, dropping a tough one to the hated Wolverines in Ann Arbor, and falling to 2-5 in a surprisingly tough Big Ten. With home games against Indiana, a struggling Wisconsin, and Chicago State, the 'Cats still have a chance to make a push to the NIT.

Should the 'Cats make a postseason, I expect a proper NIT shuffle by the Bill Carmody Rhythm Galaxy.

Hoops

Congratulations to the Northwestern hoops team for beating #18 Minnesota in their first win over a ranked opponent since the Vedran Vukusic era, when Northwestern defeated Iowa, which incidentally was not this game. Carmody and assistant coach, former NU starter, and headband enthusiast Tavaris Hardy have put together an exciting young team that can put up points. Scoring for Northwestern is an impressive feat because Carmody runs his deliberate Princeton offense, which limits scoring chances, leading to the football team memorably outscoring the basketball team on the same day in 2000, and a win over Purdue by the ghastly score of 40-39 over Purdue in 2004 (take a look at the box score from that game. No Northwestern player scored in double figures, and the 'Cats made no free throws in the entire game, with no player even attempting more than one freebie. Purdue's Kenneth Lowery scored 20, which astonishingly accounted for more than half of the Boilers' total offensive output).

If the Princeton offense were an animal, it would be the hippopotamus, docilely lazing about in rivers or mudpits before springing into violent action in a backdoor cut layup combination.

A typical Princeton play. Incidentally, the hippo
is one of the most deadly animals on the planet,
supposedly causing more carnage than sharks,
crocodiles, and truckasauruses. I've been
unable to successfully unearth a species-by-species
breakdown of animal related human deaths,
although it would probably end with a statistic
showing man as nature's most savage killer did I
totally just blow your mind right there or what

AN NU HOOPS PRIMER

Northwestern's basketball program is even more futile than its football team, which is a fairly impressive feat considering the football team's pre-1995 historical ineptitude. Northwestern has never gone to the NCAA tournament, and has only reached the postseason three times. The 'Cats have, of course, won Big Ten Championships in 1931 in 1933, although in those lean times Northwestern was able to win games by bribing referees with bindles full of stew.

Northwestern's Big Ten Championship basketball
tradition

Northwestern has had five All-Americans in basketball, most notably legendary quarterback Otto Graham. Perhaps Graham's two-way success can inspire more cross-sport participation because I'd like to see the football team stocked with gangly 6'9" guys and former Yugoslavians.

The 2008-9 'Cats are led by Senior 3-point specialist Craig Moore and spindly forward Kevin Coble, who desperately needs a nickname like "The Mantis" in order to further intimidate opponents who are already rattled by the support of thousands of visiting fans in the friendly confines of Welsh-Ryan Arena. Failing that, he can just go by apparent Illinois default nickname "Juice," which has been taken by point guard Michael Thompson, Illinois quarterback Isiah Williams, and Russian Lit professor Gary Saul Morson. My favorite player on the team is gigantic freshman center Kyle Rowley, who at 7 feet and 280 pounds fills up the lane like two Aaron Jennings or multiple Vince Scotts.


Kyle Rowley (left) and Kevin Coble combine power and
finesse in Northwestern's frontcourt

Hopefully, Rowley will give Northwestern the sort of physical big man they've been lacking since former Duke transfer Mike Thompson did not pan out (not to be confused with current point guard Michael "Juice" Thompson-- I apologize for the whirlwind of Mikes and Thompsons and Juices, but I've included a diagram to straighten everything out).


Fig. 1: Figuring out what the hell was going on in that last paragraph

So far, Northwestern is 1-4 in conference play, including a strong first half against powerhouse Michigan State, two heartbreaking losses coming off blown leads against Purdue and Penn State, and an absolute stinker against Wisconsin, where Northwestern's basketball team did a passable impression of virtually every Northwestern basketball team with the exception of the 1930s Hooverville Heroes. Let's hope that the 'Cats can pull out a big upset at Michigan State tomorrow night and maybe get some NIT momentum.