First off…..no smack from anyone in the Insanity Pool? None? Not even from the Commish?….so here’s some thoughts…….
A huge chunk of the Insanity Board of Governors went to Portland….saw some Madness live, so here’s some takes from the Portland trip….
Highlight game of the weekend for sure was the Long Beach State/New Mexico game. The whole Madness crew snuck down to 10 rows behind the Long Beach State bench and saw the Madness intensity in it's truest form! We felt it and witnessed it! Long Beach State's Casper Ware was tryin to take over, but him along with the rest of the Long Beach State team was dog tired at the 8 minute mark and tried to truck a win v. New Mexico. They grinded and grinded and came up short. Ware had two great, but contested looks to the hole, but missed both in the last minute. He makes those lay-ups, then LBS wins. But all can attest that everyone could feel the Madness! We all felt it, but a small part of us felt like we were robbed. Why? Hopefully this wasn't an omen for this year's Madness.....hmmmm!
Anywhoo...Louisville/Davidson was the first game of the Thursday games, and Vancouver, BC product and Davidson point guard, Nik Cochran was as useless as McDonalds' attempt to make gravy for their fries back in the day! This kid is on the All-Ten-N-Two Team…..he played way too safe and made no attempts to go after anything! Cochran and Davidson had so many chances to make a run and even take a lead. The door was open for the LBS/New Mexico energy to start rolling here. But Davidson decided to go Clive Owen in "Inside Man" and stay in the safe! Lame!
The last game of the night had New Mexico State with their lame ass mustached-cowboy mascot vs. the upstart Indiana Hoosiers. New Mexico State owes the entire Portland Rose Garden their money back for their horrendous performance vs. Indiana. They didn’t try at all. They pulled off the Kobe Bryant sand-bag performance of the Madness! Plus, you could tell that Indiana is a HUGE program with their get-up and two whole sections of Hoosier fans, but their band was also on the All Ten-N-Two Team....they played it safe AND were boring!
The first of the two major highlights of the trip was sitting behind the Wichita State Shockers Band for the WSU/VCU game and realizing the Wichita State Shocker Band and cheer-leaders sign was indeed the Shocker Sign!!!!! No sh^t! They bent that ring finger and slung the sign up for all free throw attempts and cheers! Whaaa!?!?!? This is the Madness.......you know you're in a different stratosphere when College Hoop schticks can cross the borders of appropriateness and add to the energy of the MaDneSs!!!!
But, K-Smack didn’t know what the sign meant, so it had to be googled on the ol' smart phone! K-Smack being K-Smack!!!!! Plus the Wichita State Shocker mascot, WuShock was hilarious as hell giving us an entertaining as hell show! When the band was on the floor during a timeout, WuShock used the curtained partition to rise up and down like those elevator bits and rose up like he was doing the wave with different hand gestures. Yes the Shocker sign was one of them, and being the first row behind, everybody was laughing their asses off! WuShock, your the Official Insanity Pool Mascot of the Madness!!!!
The Official Insanity Pool Band of the Madness!?!?!? Hands down the VCU Pep Band!!!
This was the second of the two main highlights with Tuba Man stealing the show for the VCU Pep Band! This guy swiveled his hips while playing his tuba rocking the tunes out while being in his own Madness world! He was possessed! Check him out. See if you can make out where Tuba Man is......so good! This is actual footage from the Madness in Portland and VCU Band/Tuba man owning it!
And check out this video……on the day off on Friday, the VCU band played in a park in Portland and we just missed them by 10-15 minutes as we sat down for lunch. Here’s their performance though, we found it on Youtube. They're freaking amazing and the VCU Pep Band is the exact opposite of Nik Cochran...they go after it!
So good. Chills! The band leader was a piece of work too. He started every game with a 3-piece suit on, eventually taking off his jacket and then changing into a black Batman t-shirt with his yellow VCU hat on backwards. In the Saturday game, he tore off his suit down to a Superman t-shirt this time. As you can see in the video, there are few people that love their job as much as the VCU Band Leader and the whole VCU Pep Band! Huge ups! I've watched this Portland Director Park performance fiddy times already, never gets old!
Other highlights included watching Lehigh's stomping of the Puke Poo Devils at the Blitz Ladd sports pub on Friday night, right after watching Ohio's upset of Michigan. There was a huge crowd of Ohio alumni in the Blitz Ladd pub as well. They were led by Ohio lady fan who owned it with her drunken chant of "Fuuu-ucck Mish-ihh-gan!" (clap) (clap), (clap) (clap) (clap)!!!
Also there was the Gonzaga/Ohio State game we watched on Saturday morning with our TV having the only high def channel in the whole bar, so our TV was 2 seconds ahead of the rest of the other TV's, which meant that our cheers were always 2 seconds ahead of the rest of the bars....it was prophetic!
It was an epic trip. Huge thanks to Schmitty and Jesse for organizing a huge chunk of the trip with the house and all and showing us around Portland! Everybody has to experience the Madness live, at least once in their lives!! The Insanity Board of Governors are busy planning next year's Madness trip to San Jose! Can't wait!
One casualty of the trip was missing out on UBC's epic March Madness run in Calgary! Their the best team in Canada! Epic run Birds and congrats to Alex Vieweg and Zara Huntley on their legendary 5-year runs! Watch out for the Birds next year!
And then there is the rest of the Madness! There's many takes to be said, and perhaps they'll be said in future Insanity Reports, but to adhere to the new policy of shorter Insanity Reports, lets end on this point.
There's no doubt that this year's Madness has been fantastic, highlighted by two #15 seeds winning on the same day where there was a record of 8 upsets on the Friday of the Madness!
But what has been severely lacking is a BUZZER BEATER in this years Madness!!!
Here is our eye-witness view of VCU's near miss at the buzzer vs. Indiana. You can see VCU drive down the floor and set up a good look with the puppies set. Even though VCU misses, it is a great Madness moment with Indiana rushing the court, but the disappointment on T-Smack's, Martina's and Tarah's face is very apparent. The upset is extremely rampant in Paulsen's face as he is so mad, he's as upset as Amy Squirrel in "Bad Teacher"....Paulsen........"don't do that with your mouth....regular mouth!" Here's the clip......
This is no accident!
This year is the first year in many years that Gus Johnson has not been involved in any play-by-play of any game in the Madness. It is a travesty that even though he is not signed by CBS anymore that there was no loophole where Gus could still be involved in the Madness broadcasts!?!?!?!? No Gus this year? No buzzer beaters? Coincedence?
First, please allow us to re-iterate Bill Simmon's first decree of the Law of Gus back in November 2010:
I keep mentioning the Law of Gus without ever really defining it, so let's do it right now. If Gus Johnson is calling an NFL game, the odds quintuple that (A) the lead will change hands in the fourth quarter; (B) someone will complete a long pass in a big moment that will make Gus' voice hit an octave only dogs can hear; and (C) the game will go into overtime or at least come damned close. It seems impossible that the mere presence of an announcer would alter the course of the game, but here's my theory: I think God sits in his Man Cave on Sundays and says, "Which game is that Gus Johnson calling? I get a kick out of that guy. I think I'll make his game exciting and see if he completely loses his mind."
Bill's "Law of Gus" has, of course, transferred to the Madness with many legendary calls from Princeton's backdoor upset of UCLA in the late 90's to 2006's epic Gonzaga/UCLA ending. We can't forget the Xavier/Kansas State game from 2 years back!
How bout this year?
Nope, the Madness is batting Oh-fer-Madness, and as J-Dawg called it, "It's The Law of Gus in Reverse".
Indeed J-Dawg.....it's the Curse of Gus!!!!!.....it's the Curse of the Gus-bino and The Curse of the Billy-Gus rolled up into one!
Well until CBS/TBS/TNT and/or TRU TV brings Gus back, all we have is this clip of one of Gus' legendary calls in the Pac-12 tourney last year! "Cooooold Blooded!!!!"
I know we are part of just a cult following of major Gus Johnson fans, but something has to be done.....CBS has to hear our voices! Our cries! Gus and the Madness is like peas and carrots! Like Starsky and Hutch! Like friggin' Charlie Sheen and a crack pipe!! They have to be together!
Enjoy this Gus clip, it's all we have so far....memories of Gus Insanity of the Past.....(sigh)....enjoy!
During last night's game the Insanity Board was texting back and forth with takes of the games. J-Dawg, of course sparked the convo that led to the "Curse of Gus" conclusion. We all felt slightly empty inside, but as soon as the Sweet 16 ended on Friday night, Hoosiers was on TV!
It was like the Madness gods heard our cries......as we flip the channel from the Madness onto Hoosiers, it was on the part where Shooter organizes the picket-fence and Merle curls the screen and swish!!!!! Buzzer beater!!!!
You could here Gus somewhere saying, "Merle....Rise and Fire....with the J....(swish)...Haaaaahh Haaaahhhhhh!!!! Coooold Blooooded!!!......Whhaaattta game!!!!"
J-Dawg and I exchanged texts of classic Hoosier lines for the rest of the movie and Paulsen said that the convo should have been archived.
"Think of chewing gum.....at the end of the game I wanna know what flavor he is"....when Buddy fouls out, Gene Hackman looks over at a slumping Buddy. Buddy turns to him and says, "It was dentyne!"
Then Gene Hackman needs the preacher's son, Strap to go into the game........"Strap...god wants you on the floor"........"Don't shoot the ball unless you're under the basket all by yourself!!!".....Strap makes some hoops and he tells Hackman, "It's the lord, I can feel his strength." Coach Hackman says, "well keep his strength in the dribble alright!"
Then there's the scene where they enter the HUGE and legendary Hinkle Fieldhouse before the State Championship. Coach Hackman get the players to measure the length of the free throw line to the hoop and the height of the hoop.....he concludes with, "I think you'll find these exact same measurements as our gym back in Hichory!"
Pure Madness....pure chills.....here's another spine tingling scene from Hoosiers. This is the essence of the Madness!
"...and David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it....and it struck the Philistine in the head, and he fell to the ground. Amen."
Enjoy!
To save space still, and to sum up......as J-Dawg put it....."this is a perfect way to end the Sweet 16!"
But as much as we loved watching Hoosiers and old Gus Johnson clips...we need some real buzzer beaters! It'll happen......David will always trump Goliath. Patience!
Please Madness Gods, lift the Curse of Gus for one, maybe two buzzer beaters today! Or perhaps tomorrow or next week in N'awlins!
Patience though! Trust the Madness!
We need Gus back!
.......Eff it!!!! Here's some more Gus clips from Madness past. Enjoy....
Here's Gus' "The Slipper still fiiiiiits!!!" call from Gonzaga's first NCAA run back in 1999.
Another favourite from 2006....UCLA's comeback vs. Gonzaga with the steal and put back. Gus loses his shit highlighted by his classic, "Heartbreak City" call! Watch until you hear Len Elmore's "Holy mackeral!!!!!"....then you can click to the fast forwarded clip in the clip below when Gus has a near aneurism from the last second shot. If Batista's shot, "with the caaaaaa-tch!" goes in, I've said many times, Gus would probably have died of a heart attack
Here's the 2005 Vermont over Syracuse upset:
Technically not a Gus moment from the Madness but it's still crazy, especially with Bill Raftery calling the game with Gus and both being speechless after the shot's made and then Bill's classic call. Gus leads the call with, "Here come the All-America!"........then Raftery with, "Gus!!!!! Major Onions!!!!!"....."Oh whatta smooch!....Whoooooo!!!!!"
Again, not a Madness moment, but here's a classic call from this year from one of Gus' Big Ten Network broadcasts:
And lets end on a high note. Back to the 2010 classic Xavier/Kansas State game.....it's a long clip, but it was quite possibly the greatest game in Madness history! So many moments!
LONG LIVE GUS! BRING GUS BACK TO THE MADNESS!!!!!
REVERSE THE CURSE!!
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