Nut

There are a couple of non-sports reasons why last week’s post about the newest Buffalo Bills acquisition is titled Virus.

The laptop caught one as did I.

The lack of activity comes at such a bad time.  Not only does it suck to have a personal laptop temporarily out of commission, but it doesn’t help that an annoying head cold has been going around.  So in these days of going to bed unexpectedly early because of a lack of energy, there has been a ton of words sparsely divided onto a few drafts and even more thoughts left in the memory bank.

Yet, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when the haze begins to lift?

“If I was either team, I would have left.  Just got on the A (train) and left.”

When SPJ sent the text about the Syracuse – Connecticut game having gone into a sixth (SIXTH!) overtime, I was channeling my inner Rip Van Winkle. When I woke up to see that message greeting me, I could only think of how exhausted those players must have been.

Potential classic or not, one of Jim Boeheim or Jim Calhoun’s kids must have been thinking, “Coach, just give me the rock. I’m taking us home.”

I understand that the ideal beauty of the game of basketball is this team-oriented, democratic movement of the ball. Yet, someone - no matter how many fouls a start player has or how much rust from a season full of DNP-CDs has collected in the bones of a walk-on - should have went nut (or for those unfamiliar with the vernacular, read: ball hog).

Sure, considering the epic this game apparently was, the singular focus of one player would have took away from the story that will be told countless times until another game matches its length and competitiveness. However, in understanding that the winner of last night’s game would have to play just under 24 hours later, someone should have pretended that he was playing the ultimate “all-y’all-against-me” game.

Hungry, exhausted, funky and frustrated? It was definitely entertaining for those who watched it live. Yet, the Wendy’s on 34^th Street probably wasn’t open, the too short mattress at the hotel looked like a California King, showering after the game would have taken too much effort and neither team pulled away with a string of consecutive makes.

Yeah, as my text said, “If I was either team, I would have left.  Just got on the A (train) and left.”

And with that attitude, it's easy to see why I’ve never played sports beyond intramurals in college.