Consider this my retirement.  Thanks for reading.

Go Zags.

“SCU coach Kerry Keating, hearing Richard Fox on a GU TV broadcast: ‘When did Tony Robbins become their color guy?’”

Before you freak out, remember that Kerry Keating is world-renowned Zag hater (and that that Tony Robbins crack doesn’t even make sense).  During his career as Santa Clara coach he has at least twice said to the papers that Saint Mary’s (and not Gonzaga) is the team to beat in the WCC.  (Both times, it should be noted, the Zags won both the conference regular season title and the conference tournament title.)  He’s got some kind of bone to pick or some kind of ax to grind or some other kind of metaphor in his bonnet.  Don’t know, but he hates Gonzaga.  He also looks like every smug douchebag you ever knew in your life ever.  So maybe that’s his problem.  Maybe he’s still bitter over the laxatives Owen Wilson put into his drink in Wedding Crashers.  Or maybe he’s just tired of being irrelevant.  Who knows.

But since we’re point out observations, Kerry, how about the following?

-Santa Clara jumped out to a ten-point lead (10-0, actually).
-The Zags won the rest of the game by 32 points.
-That 32-point victory is just a few points lower than GU’s average margin of victory over its first three conference games.

It’s a good thing Keating’s team is so below-average, because if not, it’d be really easy to hate him.

Go Zags.

1) That the WCC sucks monkey balls.  Zag fans love to point to any and all pieces of data that might allow them to suggest the WCC is getting better.  Lookit Saint Mary’s and all their Australians!  Lookit Brandon Davies and how awesome BYU is!  Cool, but let’s not forget to also lookit the fact that the Zags have beaten two straight conference teams by an average of nearly 34 points. and that the last time a Gonzaga team consistently blew conference teams out was in 2008-2009 (the team that lost to Carolina in the Sweet Sixteen).  Given the small sample size, I’m not sure what those two blowouts mean, but it brings up two questions: 1) Is the conference not only not getting better but actually getting worse? and 2) Does it matter?

2) That Gonzaga used to have a sweet, basically national TV deal all to itself and now it’s getting blacked out in its own state.  Long-time La Rev readers are surely sick of hearing about this by now, but in case you’re new to the building, consider the following timeline:

2005-2006: Gonzaga reaches its own deal with Fox Sports Northwest and the network starts showing Zag games to any TV on which it airs.  By default, this includes TVs in Washington, Oregon, and northern Idaho.  Not bad, but to make things even greater, any cable subscriber willing to pay a small fee (under $5 monthly) can add Fox Sports Northwest to their cable package, thus allowing them to watch every Gonzaga game no matter where in the United States they live.  For example, I lived in Washington, DC, and didn’t miss a game for three straight seasons thanks to the package.  The whole thing (and the publicity it brought) was an amazing coup for a small mid-major university that was basically unheard  of five years earlier.

2008-2009: The West Coast Conference, in all of its rinky-dink, Mickey Mouse glory, sold an exclusive TV deal to ESPN.  Under the deal, ESPN now owned exclusive broadcast rights to every nationally-televised WCC game.  This forced cable providers to black out every game ESPN didn’t broadcast itself, and sadly, that included the Fox Sports Northwest games that had been beemed across the country for three seasons.  Even more sadly, Gonzaga stood by and did nothing, and even more sadly than that, representatives of the university (in this case Sports Information Director Oliver Pierce) responded to numerous questions/concerns by blaming the West Coast Conference and saying Gonzaga had nothing to do with it. (The whole sad affair is summed up here.  Please read through to learn more because I’m getting angry even writing this.)

2008-present: Unless you live in a 10-state region or have a satellite dish, you are unable to watch Zag games on Root Sports Northwest (formerly Fox Sports Northwest), even if you were able to in 2005.  To repeat, in 2005, Zag fans in 50 states could watch any Zag game they wanted, and in 2011, only those in ten states could.  For all you non-math majors, that’s an 80% drop.

Yesterday: In a somewhat different twist, a Zag game broadcast on Root Sports Northwest was blacked out by Root Sports Northwest in a major American city filled with Zag fans and not only located within the ten-state region mentioned above, but within the very same state as Gonzaga itself.  I’d ask my old friend Oliver Pierce what the Athletic Department did to stop, or at least protest, that fact, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like the answer.

But, hey, the Zags won big.  So there’s that.

Go Zags.

Hi!!!!! I kinda cant believe I’m here becsuse this blog is just so opposite of the places I normally hang out like GU Boards or the Slipper LOL I had the idea to send La Rev a guest post because I wanted him to see that there’s more to bein’ a fan then bein’ negative towards the Zag’s all the time.  Acutally, it was my wife who had the idea (I wont tell her name–trying to protect the innocent!!!–so you’ll just have to call her The Gump LOL!!1!!!) but still, I asked La Rev if I could write something here to lay my case why the Zag’s (and the game I saw last night) make me so happy.  He told me “sure” but that he wouldn’t edit anything I wrote.  Said something about “wanting to make sure the world gets a true sense of what it’s dealing with” whatever that means. Anyway’s, I want to start by telling you my favorite player’s in reverse order:

4) David Stockton: Gosh, how can you not just love this kid. He runs the offense with procision IMO and their hasn’t been a Zag point guard look as polished and mature as him since his daddy IMO!!!!!

3) Pendo! Sure he’s not playin’ anymore, but I can’t make a list without him!!!! True Zag all the way!  Love ya Pendo!

2) Mike Heart: His name is really true LOL All heart! A typical glue guy. Put him on the other team’s best defender and that guy aint gettin’ nothin’ LOL Maybe we should change his name to Mike Glue LOL!!!!!

1) Robert Sacre: Such a great ambassador! A true Zag! The Gump and I met him at last year’s basketball banquet and he was just such a clean cut, well-spoken guy! Never have to worry about him sayin’ he’ll zip anyone up like those Xavier gangsta’s LOL! We’re so lucky to have him IMO and were gonna be sorry when hes gone!!!!!!

So now that you know a little bit about who I am, let me tell you why I’m writing.  The other day, The Gump and I were watching The Mark Few Show (our favorite show of course LOL!!) when we both had a idea at the same time (wait till you wippersnappers have been married as long as us!!! You will start having the same thoughts to!): “LEt’s pack up the camper and drive to Ohio for the Xavier game!”  Crazy idea, but when you love the Zag’s as much as we do, you make sacrifices LOL!  So that’s just what we did!  So we’re driving and after we stopped at the Corn Palace and Wall Drug and ate at TGI Fridays (god i love America!  Where else can you have such fun!), the Gump says, “Honey, I’ve got a great idea, why don’t you write that Negative Nelly Larvabug and ask him why hes such a Negative Nelly!”  “Gump,” says I.  “Your a genius!”  So I write Larvabug (ha! The Gump is so hilarious! See why I locked her up when I did?) and asks him if I could write about the Xavier game.  After all, The Gump and I were gonna be there.  I mean, we aren’t “deep thinkers” like Larvabug and his friends (I follow you guy’s on Twitter…I know what your all about LOL You all think your so smart but really your not), but we love the Zag’s.  The world deserves to hear our story.  With out further adeui, here’s how our day went down:

7:00 am- Our camper rolls into Cincy.  The Gump picks this time to tell me she used to have a huge crush on Pete Rose.  Aw, Gump!

7:01 am- We park the camper and quickly look for other Zag fans.  There’s nobody around!  Come on, Zag’s! You guy’s gotta support the team!  How else will they know how much we love them!

7:02 am- Since there aren’t any other fan’s around, we decide to look around for the team.  I know Robert remembers me from the banquet last year and this time I’m gonna have him sign my jersey!!!!!

8:00 am- No sign of the team, but we’re starving!!!!! The Gump wants Chili’s, I want Applebee”s.  None of them are open so we settle for Denny’s.

9:00 am- This is when are story get’s great!!! We walk out of Denny’s and who do we see walking on the other side of the street by Robert Sacre!!!!! “Robert!!!!!” I yell. “Robert!!!!  Hey, Robert!!!!” I don’t think he heard me because he was just walking with his head down.  Then he started talking on his phone.  Then he walked into some store.  He totally didn’t here me!  “Come on, Gump!  We gotta go talk to him!!!!” So we ran across the street (sorry to that car who almost hit me LOL! I needed to go talk to Robert!) and into the store!!!

9:01 am- I can’t find Robert anywhere.  I’m looking all over the place.  I ask one of the clerk’s if they had seen Robert but they looked at me all confused.  How can you guy’s not know Robert Sacre?  No fear…….I finally found him in the corner.  He must have been shopping for Halloween masks (he’s so fun!) because he had a mask on.  I almost walked right past him! I caught up with him and we had the best chat.  I told him how fun it was to see him again after the banquet.  “Oh…yeah…that was cool,” he said! Robert Sacre remembered me!!! I’m never washing these eyes again!!!!  Then I wished him good luck and told him to get some rest and eat a good meal!!!! “We need you healthy tonight, big fella!!! Gotta zip up those Gangstateers!!”  “Sure, dude,” He said (Robert Sacre called me dude!!!!) and then he walked out.

9:02-6:00- After that talk with Robert, those next few hours were a total blur.  I think we walked around Cincy. I think we may have run into Pete Rose and I may have lost track of the Gump for a few hours.  But who care’s!!!  I only came out of my stuper when I realized how hungry I was.  Applebee”s beckoned.  The Gump and I split the Tennessee burbun (sp?) chicken quesadilla, jalapeno poppers, and a salad with extra ranch (our usual!!!! Love Applebee’s!)

6:30- Off to the game!!!

6:45- Arrive at the arena.  The Gump and I take our seats and she’s nervous as usual and I’m yelling at the Xavier students telling them that there team is gangsters and that we wouldn’t take tough guy thugs like them at Gonzaga!!!!! Don’t think they liked me to much LOL!!!!!

8:00- Finally the game.  I just got one word for you Gangstateers….ZIP EM UP!!!!1!!! LOL

11:00- After the game, The Gump and I tried to wait around for the team to come out of the locker room but the security guy’s kicked us out.  I guess they don’t know that this is America and that we have free speech and a right to free assembly!!!! Just another result of Obamacare! (Lookin’ forward to taking our country back in 2012!!!!!)

11:15- We arrive back at the camper and make our way home.

So that’s where I am now, guy’s (the Gump’s behind the wheel…don’t worry LOL!!!)!!!!  Such a great way to spend my New Year’s IMO.  I’m so happy and blessed to have a chance to see such a great team and a hard working bunch of Zag’s in person and with my best girl by my side (luv ya, Gump!).

Go Team Zag’s!!!!

Editor: Yikes.  May God have mercy on our souls.

Dear Mark Few,

Hi.  How’s it going?  Good?  See, that’s the kind of shit that happens when you keep athletes on the court and let them do what they do.

Sincerely,
Some jerk on the Internet

PS- Athletes in space, athletes in space, athletes in space.

Go Zags.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I love Tim Tebow.  Like, a lot.  Totally unlikely, too, because I was the typical person who couldn’t stand him when he was at Florida.  But now, he’s at the head of my all-time favorite sports team (really my first love in life) as it makes an improbable run to the playoffs, and I’m hooked.  He’s helped make watching the Broncos fun again and I love him for it.  I yell at the meathead analysts who say he doesn’t do one thing particularly well or can’t do another thing all together.  “It doesn’t matter,” I say.  “He wins games and who gives a poop how?”  Because, really, who gives a poop how?  The whole point of the game is to win the thing, so what does it matter if Tebow wins it by throwing for 300 yards and five touchdowns, by only completing two passes, or by bouncing the ball on his head the whole way down the field for the winning score?  A win’s a win, and Tebow’s pretty awesome at being a quarterback on a winning team.  There’s just something about him, you might say.  Something about him that makes his team win even though it shouldn’t.  Something that inspires the rest of the guys to pull off the improbable, to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat, to be better than they really are.  Intangibles, some people call them.  Unmeasurables.  Things that don’t show up on a stat sheet, but things you know are there nonetheless.  Things like heart and guts and want-to and grit.  Yep; there’s just something about him that makes 52 of the most finely-tuned athletes in the world play way awesome, when they’d otherwise play way sucky (or at least way mediocre).  Yessir.  One guy’s got all that power.  Inspiring, really.  I mean, Champ Bailey’s probably in the top five of all people in world history who have ever worked his current job, and he needs to be inspired to play great.  Von Miller?  He’s your basic second coming of Derrick Thomas and he needs that same inspiration.  An offensive line that’s built specifically to run block fifty times a game?  A head coach who’s already coached one Super Bowl team?  Two wide recievers standing over six foot, three inches?  A Hall of Fame safety and a kicker with a 70-yard leg?  Same thing.  They need the crap out of that inspiration.

But upon reflection, I’m pretty sure I’d take Peyton Manning over Tim Tebow every day of the week and nine billion times on Sunday.  Because you know why?  In a sport played by talented and well-trained athletes, things like heart and guts and want-to and grit?  They don’t mean shit.  If they did, we’d all still be playing sports. 

Go Zags.  And free Guy Landry Edi.

Three types of players currently get minutes for your Gonzaga Bulldogs.  Type One is the guy who works within the offense (and occaisionally, the defense), shoots when he’s open, gets his points when they come.  He’s generally consistent but doesn’t do much more than is taught in a Early Basketball for Dummies (now with less peach baskets!) book. He’s obviously very skilled at the game of basketball, but he’s also obviously unable to attack the basket, to play above the rim, to take a game over.  He plays completely within himself, but also without any of the athletic grace that separates basketball from the other spectator sports.  Of course, he makes up basically the entire roster and is thus the reason the Zags will win far more games than they will lose this season, but won’t do much more than that.  He’s vanilla, and that makes him the perfect player for a vanilla coach like Mark Few and a vanilla program like Gonzaga.

Type Two, on the other hand, can create his own shot with a series of spin moves in the post, fairly quick first steps from the wing, and a game that lives a little further above the rim than Type One can get even with a jet pack.  He attacks the rim like few players we’ve seen in a Gonzaga uniform, and he does it all with a strange efficiency that makes him a wonder to watch.  His movements on the court are completely controlled, almost tempered.  It’s as if he’s aware of the limitations of his own athleticism, but also aware that that athleticism is pretty tough to beat when combined with his size and strength.  Type Two is, of course, Elias Harris.  When he’s on, Harris is the best player on the team by far, but not entirely unusual, especially in Gonzaga history.  Dan Dickau, Blake Stepp, even Adam Morrison were all Type Twos.  Great non-vanilla players, could win a game when it counted, but also played in a way that spoke to the limitations of the human body.

Type Three is something totally different.  He plays basketball like it’s played in Space Jam by the Monstars, which is to say, completely outside the realm of human capabilities.  People can’t do the things Type Three can, at least not ones who aren’t cartoon aliens.  Whereas Type One plays within the offense and Type Two plays within his own athleticism, Type Three plays as if his own body were just a ball and chain keeping him from the basket.  When he has the ball, his every movement on the court screams “Move out of my way!”  Type Three personifies basketball, at least in my mind.  He wants to score (scoring is the object, after all), but not in silly, give-me-the-ball-when-I’m-open-and-I’ll-try-my-best-to-score kind of way.  No, for Type Three, jump shots are a waste of movement. Watch a Type Three player take free throws and notice how uncomfortable he looks. He looks like Tom Sawyer in his church clothes.  He just wants to get to the basket and to get there now.  This mindset lets him move quicker and with more purpose than anyone else on the court.  His game is both beauty and danger and it is a thrill to watch.  Gonzaga hasn’t had many players like him.  Maybe Ronny Turiaf.  At times Erroll Knight, but at least not since Jeremy Pargo.  Many will (and most likely do) look at Type Three and call him an incomplete basketball player and wish he played more like Types One or Two.  That would be to judge him on the same lines as Types One and Two, though, and that would be a mistake.  Those other players can only dream of playing Type Three’s brand of basketball.

Of course, Type Three is Guy Landry Edi (GLE).  Also of course, GLE played only one more minute (eleven) yesterday than he did the game before.  In his short time on the court, though, he took six shots, including two threes and two shots that followed lightning quick drives past hapless defenders.  I’ll be the first to admit that he needs to chose his shots a little better, but I’ll also say that Gonzaga basketball hasn’t been as fun as when GLE is on the court in a long time.  He takes initiative, attacks the basket, and wants to kill the rim like no player since Jeremy Pargo.  Him just having the ball opens things up for everyone else, and if GU is ever going to get where I think it wants to go as a program, it will need GLE in order to do so.  And it sure as shit won’t get there by having him average 10.5 minutes per game

Go Zags.  And free Guy Landry Edi.

So, I’m not sure.  Maybe all those things I did yesterday (and last night) to enjoy myself while watching my alma mater and favorite basketball team play just a few miles from where I live weren’t enough.  And maybe I was too negative.  Or maybe “too negative” doesn’t exist and there is no monopoly on being a “good fan.”  That’s my vote.

Go Zags.

These Zags aren’t great.  They aren’t really even all that good, or even that bad.  Meh.

Made some great plays.  Had some (or a lot of) silly turnovers.  Nailed some big threes.  Failed to grab at least a handful of gimme defensive rebounds.  Meh.

Overall, I’m not sure what to make of these guys.  I don’t particularly enjoy watching them (made that clear a few weeks ago), but I don’t altogether hate doing so, either.  I sort of just sit there, zoning out until Greg Heister’s insane gurgling brings me back to reality.  In a fantasy tournament against other Zag teams, they probably win a few games, but they most likely get killed in a few others. (2003-2004 would absolutely destroy them.  Ronny and Violette versus Rob Sacre and Sam Dower?  Yikes.)  Just kinda meh.  Meh all around.

Fittingly, Arizona brings in its own “Meh” team on Saturday.  The Cats are pretty young, pretty untested, pretty erratic (lost to Seattle Pacific the other week…um, what?), but also pretty damn talented. But I’d probably take to the bank the fact that Arizona’s meh is a lot better than Gonzaga’s meh, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the Zags could find themselves getting blown out.

Considering I’ll be at the game, such a blowout would be the opposite of meh.

Go Zags.

I wonder, though, if we get so focused on how far away the Zags are that we don’t realize just how far they’ve come.

A few minutes into the first half, when Gary Bell (the above mentioned freshman) hit a three and the crowd went bonkers, I was struck by the following revelation: “HOLY SHIT WE’RE PLAYING MICHIGAN STATE IN THE KENNEL THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!”  For some of you, this reality might not seem that ground-breaking.  You’ve seen the Zags play Virginia, Wake Forest, Xavier, and Notre Dame in the Kennel. Of course they’ll play Michigan State, too, right? But as I am someone whom people pay to do history stuff, you’ll just have to believe me when I say that it is, historically speaking, super huge.  GU might be able to attract some big programs to games in the Kennel now, but when I was in school? Not even close.  The biggest game I ever saw in the Kennel was Pepperdine in 2002.  Seriously.  Pepperdine.  No big-conference program outside of WSU or UW  even remotely considered coming to the Kennel in 2002.  The Spokane Arena, maybe, but the Kennel?  Not a chance.  To further the insanity, consider that since that home game against Pepperdine in 2002, Michigan State has been to five Final Fours.  Five.  That’s exactly five more than every other team who’s played Gonzaga in the Kennel ever.  And yesterday, the Spartans played Gonzaga in the Kennel.  A lot will surely be made Tom Izzo’s apparent desire to bring his team to Spokane as a gift to his mentor (and Spokane resident), Jud Heathcote.  There might be something to that, but Izzo could have done that any number of times in the last decade.  No, he brought the Spartans to the Kennel because the Kennel is a legit place in which to play Gonzaga.  For someone who watched games for four years in the Old Kennel against teams ranging from UW to Tulsa to Pepperdine to a two-win Saint Mary’s squad, and did it all less than a decade ago, that’s some mind-blowing shit.

So, no matter how far away we are from ever seeing the Zags play in a Final Four, don’t forget that a true national powerhouse program played Gonzaga in the Kennel last night.  And don’t forget how truly awesome that reality is.

Go Zags.