Georgia Bulldogs 73, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 66: What the Final Score Would Have Been If Jasper Hadn't "Fumbled"
by T Kyle King on Jan 5, 2010 9:44 PM EST
in Basketball
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Print(Warning: If you want anything approaching detailed exegesis in the moment, read tankertoad's fanpost. You have been warned.)
I defer to MaconDawg when it comes to basketball, for the obvious reason that he is able to offer analysis more sophisticated than mine. Quite frankly, if I tried to describe a basketball play, I would sound like Benjy Compson. "He ran and he ran and he passed and he passed and he shot and he rebounded and they all ran some more."
I have nothing against basketball, however; there merely is so much room in one human heart for rabid passions, and I have a wife and two children and a religion and a career and football and baseball and a Faulkner problem sufficiently severe that I make Benjy Compson references for no apparent reason. There are only so many hours in the day, people.
I recall one time, though, when I was a kid, that my parents and I went to see the Georgia Bulldogs play the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at the Cotton States Classic at the Omni (I told you it was when I was a kid) and we were three drops of red in a sea of yellow and a clearly better Georgia Tech team held off a furious rally by a scrappy Georgia team ("scrappy" and "flukey" seem to be the two best bets for a Georgia men's basketball team, though perhaps that is changing), and, after the game, a roaring drunk Georgia Tech fan who refuted the notion that their yahoo quotient is perceptibly smaller than ours stood atop a bench or a concrete planter or the like harassing passing Bulldog fans, including us. As we walked by him, he yelled at my mother and my father and me (I apologize for the profanity, but I feel the need to relate the story accurately): "'Dawgs ain't shit!"
I didn't break stride, but, as we walked by him, I turned, looked up at him, and said: "And Tech is."
That pretty much sums up how I react to a Georgia-Georgia Tech basketball game. Train up a child in the way he should go, and all that.
It's tough to admit this while the Ramblin' Wreck football team is still in action, but, for those of us whose loyalties lie in Athens, football season is over and we're still counting down the days until women's gymnastics season (featuring blogging by Suzanne Yoculan!) begins, so, from my vantage point as the least well-informed Georgia basketball fan you are likely to find, let me just say that it's great to be a Georgia Bulldog after beating Georgia Tech in the sport that means almost as much to them as football does to us.
In principle, I agree with U.S. Congressman Jack Kingston, who said that "no one watches basketball but a bunch of ACC weenies." Even so, though, four wins in the last five games, including one over our local rival, may offer an early inkling that basketball soon may be something other than the sport holding Georgia athletics back.
Hey, it's a start.
Go 'Dawgs!
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I <3 Coach Mark Fox.
As the duly appointed token optimist, it is my duty to say so… But isn’t it wonderful to have a coach with, you know, a game plan?
Trey Thompkins is a beast, Travis Leslie is a freak athlete, and we have a coach who knows what’s going on. It truly is great to be a Georgia Bulldog.
Chalk it up to my optimism, but its nice to know we will give some unsuspecting SEC teams fits this year. Hopefully we can take this momentum into Saturday and stick with UK for awhile — I’m not even optimistic enough to predict a win in that one — Derrick Favors isn’t John Wall.
Go Dawgs!
"I Run This State." - Washaun Ealey and Caleb King
by RedCrake on Jan 5, 2010 9:57 PM EST via mobile reply actions
I had to look up exegesis. I am not sure what that says about me.
I dont get it, but i understanad Tech likes to hate UGA. What I don’t get is the level of hate – to a point where they lose the big picture on the entire football program. They have not, and dont seem to want to, moved beyond Tech beating UGA as a statement of their program. But, I don’t lose any sleep over it.
Until I read the Tech blogs about UGA VII’s untimely death. I understand some fans aren’t really fans and are just classless a&*’s. But the moderators of multiple posts did nothing to stop it. And my hate on Tech grew to a “I hope they lose everything against us for a year” attitude. I hope our Baseball team kills them. I hope our Golf team kills them. I fully expect our football team to beat them again in 2010. I want them beat back into submission where all they can think is how much they hate Georgia and forget everything else.
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
The Best Thing about tonights win
This give UGA a football/basketball season sweep. For many years I had a standing bet with a buddy of mine that in the event one team swept football and basketball, the loser had to endure something awful. I had to sport a GaTech window sticker in my car for an entire year. He had to wear a pair of Bulldog boxer shorts on his wedding night.
For the last two years I have had a similiar bet with my oldest son (a sophomore at Tech… so much for “train up a child”…). Last year I had to display a GaTech Tshirt in my office on the bust of my late great-great grandfather. Now my son will have to do something equally odious. Any ideas? My favorite so far is that he wear a red&black tie (that plays “Glory Glory”) to his fraternity chapter meetings.
by Blogger who came in from the cold on Jan 5, 2010 11:05 PM EST reply actions
you have a bust of your late great great grandfather? wow
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
I've seen the bust, tankertoad
It’s pretty cool.
BWCIFTC, I suppose requiring him to transfer from a vocational school to a university would be going a bit too far?
Seriously, making him wear a tie to the fraternity chapter meetings is a good idea. Why make one Georgia Tech fan miserable when you can aggravate a bunch of them?
One other possibility you might consider . . . for the next year, every time he is greeted with, “What’s the good word?”, he is required to answer, “Georgia owns us!” (or the like).
Go 'Dawgs!
I like it.
The tie’s all right, but it might subject him to violence. I really like the second suggestion. At least he would have a chance to get a running start.
by NCT on Jan 6, 2010 9:35 AM EST up reply actions
The red and black tie is too subtle. Make him put a big ol’ UGA logo on his book bag. Why limit the "in your face’ factor to his fraternity brothers?
by georgiadawg85 on Jan 6, 2010 3:37 AM EST up reply actions
Sorry to be off topic but...
a triple option offense can be stopped effectively. Less than 200 total yards of offense? See Iowa’s defense. Man, UGA’s next DC should have that type of defense caliber. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Iowa related news are floating around concerning our next defensive coordinator
by thefirstgenesis on Jan 5, 2010 11:40 PM EST reply actions
i never believed the triple option worked that well regardless, otherwise more would be doing it
the Air Force Academy tried it forever – why? because its a simplier offense to run with players (in the case of the Academy) are very smart, but very limited on time as well as behind on football talent. Paul Johnson is a dinosaur and Tech has reached its very short pinnacle this season.
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
The Faulkner problem
T. Kyle, I have an honest question that I will work my way to in a rambling fashion. I too am a fan of Faulkner and a fairly accomplished reader of run-of-the-mill American authors. My wife’s great uncle and grandfather were contemporaries of William Faulkner and the great uncle was an attorney in Oxford Miss. Mr. Phil Stone Esq. was instrumental in securing employment for Faulkner and wrote letters to Congress on his behalf. All this to say, I have more than a passing interest in Faulkner but now, the question. Have you ever read “The Sound and the Fury” all the way through? If so, did it require medication? I apologize for the off topic fumbling.
I've read it through a few times . . .
. . . usually either right before or right after reading Absalom, Absalom!
It’s a challenge, but I’d recommend getting a copy of Edmund Volpe’s A Reader’s Guide to William Faulkner, which helps to ease some of the transitions, particularly in Benjy’s and Quentin’s sections. There’s some insightful criticism to be found in William Singal’s Faulkner: The Making of a Modernist, although Faulkner’s most important critic remains Cleanth Brooks. Avoid Noel Polk like bad gin.
For new readers of Faulkner, I usually recommend that they start with The Unvanquished, not because it’s one of his better works (it isn’t), but because it introduces them to his style and to many of the characters. (One of the things I like best about Faulkner’s novels and Kevin Smith’s films is that they overlap at many points, so that you can start virtually anywhere and work your way everywhere else.)
Phil Stone was a significant figure in Faulkner’s life, and at least one of the novels was dedicated to him. (If memory serves, the dedication was something along the lines of, “he did half the laughing for 30 years,” which is about as fine a tribute to a friend as a fellow can pay.) That’s most impressive. I think his law office on the Oxford square was the basis for Gavin Stevens’s law office in the Snopes trilogy and the short stories.
I can’t stress enough the utility of reading Absalom, Absalom!, though. I would argue that it is the best novel ever written by an American.
Go 'Dawgs!
Oops!
Daniel Singal, not William Singal. I knew that sounded wrong when I wrote it. Serves me right for trying to answer a Faulkner question off the top of my head. My bad.
There is a cool section of Singal’s book explaining Benjy’s reaction when he is taken the wrong way around the square. His critique of Faulkner’s point relies heavily on a careful reading of the works (rather than some airy Noel Polk theory that came from nowhere). I once had the opportunity to stand on the porch of Square Books in Oxford and explain Singal’s observation to my wife while actually looking at the spot Faulkner had in mind. It was pretty neat.
He’s a little off-base about the idea that Absalom, Absalom! was an attack on the Southern aristocracy, though. Thomas Sutpen was no Southern aristocrat.
Go 'Dawgs!
T.Kyle
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I have my work cut out for me in aquiring a more full appreciation of American Lit. I was always an avid reader of lesser works but after listening to my mother-in-law’s stories of growing up around William Faulkner and spending time at “Sanctuary” I felt beholden to put forth an effort to understand the works of a great American author. Basketball or Faulkner? Catch me at the library.
Old, buddy...
… I’m sure we discussed it at length long ago; but if you need help in that argument, I’ve got your back.
by Comin' Down The Track on Jan 7, 2010 4:42 PM EST reply actions
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