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I was beginning to think that UMass was kind of…..overrated, especially after conference play began, and games that should’ve been easy wins became dramatic nail biters and devastating losses. But Saturday’s 67-61 win at George Washington has brought me back on the wagon.

Winning on the road, in that environment, in front of a bunch of aggressive Miss Nancy boys in an assortment of togas and Daisy Dukes….

was by far their best win of the season. Both teams needed the win to bolster their tournament resume. Both were on the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble. Both were coming off of disappointing losses.

But it was the Minutemen who came out on top. On the road. As five point underdogs.

Just when I thought that St. Bonaventure fans were the worst people on planet earth, I got a good look at George Washington fans. Their in your face, homoerotic behavior…..

created a pretty intimidating atmosphere to play in. Their display of foreign flags at a university named for our first President, I would hope is symbolic of their international flavor? Otherwise they’re just a bunch of commies and traitors.

Luckily for UMass they were protected by Captain America, who may or may not be UMass super fan Josh Brown…

Make no mistake about it though – GW is a good basketball team as their wins against Creighton and VCU have illustrated, and they hadn’t lost at home all season. Until UMass showed up. The Minutemen were just better on Saturday. Sampson Carter was the star. A 20 point performance in which he absolutely dominated both inside and from the three point line is why my first born son will be named Sampson. Can’t say I wanna name TurtleBoy Jr. “Cady” though. Mr. Lalanne is just so soft it hurts. I seriously can’t watch him get out rebounded by smaller players anymore. I want him to succeed, I really do. But I just can’t watch plays like this anymore…

The refereeing as usual was atrocious, but the free throw shooting was worse. Under no circumstances should a Division 1 basketball team go 12-26 from the line. Either way, I’m pretty tired of watching all of our starters get in foul trouble every singe game. Maxie Esho fouled out and was called for three separate charging fouls. Were they his fault? Absolutely. I watched all three pretty closely and in every circumstance Esho charges uncontrollably at the rim and barrels over the person in front of him.

My problem is the whole concept of a charge in the first place. It’s a bush league move, and it’s really, really girly. The fact that instead of putting your hands up and playing defense, you can just purposely put yourself in front of a driving player and wait to get run into, seriously ruins the beautiful game of basketball. Jason Kidd used to do this all the time in the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals and I still hate him for it. For instance, if you’re actually playing defense and get trucked in the process, then it should be an offensive foul. Like this:

But if you’re just purposely standing in front of a guy who is trying to get to the hoop, with absolutely no intention of defending that player, like this…

then it simply shouldn’t be a foul.

Is it against the rules for a player to do this? Nope. So I can’t blame the player for taking advantage as such. But, I’ve been saying for years they need to do something about this part of the game. Under no circumstances should planting your fat ass in front of a player who is making a move for the hoop, with the intention of getting run over by said player, result in a foul against the person who is trying to score a basket. It’s not defense. It’s not basketball.

Oh yea, and somehow the refs just completely missed Raphiael Putney getting drop kicked in the face…

By far the most atrocious foul call of the game though came with 11:30 to go in the game and UMass up 49-40. Chaz Williams purposely just allowed Garino to drive to the hoop. He purposely played no defense, knowing he didn’t want to pick up his fourth foul. They of course called this a foul anyway:

Disgusting.

The idiots behind the hoop also should’ve been called for a technical foul on several occasions. Ever since Marcus Smart shoved that idiot fan from Texas Tech I’ve been of the belief that fans need to get punched by the players more often. Seriously, these nudniks think that buying a ticket puts them in an impenetrable box that allows them to yell things at players that would result in them getting their asses kicked if they did the same thing at the Monkey Bar. More importantly they should be called for technical fouls when they run on the court, as they did multiple times throughout the game…….

The problem with these idiots is that they feel like they’re some kind of badasses because they can get real confrontational with opposing players, knowing that the other team can’t retaliate with swift street justice. Let Sampson Carter knock one of these guys in the face and maybe they’ll start following the rules.

The best part of the game for me by far was this shot at the end of the game of these dingleberries….

You couldn’t put together a bigger bunch of WASPY losers if you tried. The look of sheer and utter disappointment was absolutely priceless. The fact that they had to walk back to their dorm rooms and eat Ramen noodles in togas was the icing on the cake last night. I can’t wait until we beat the bag out of St. Bonny in the Atlantic 10 tournament and watch their idiot fans try to match these sad faces. Priceless.

Nevertheless UMass overcame all of these obstacles and won the game. For that reason this was by far the biggest win of the season. They blew a ten point lead with ten minutes to go, but they didn’t lose their composure. They broke a full court press easily several times. They didn’t let bad officiating stop them from winning the game. That right there is progress.

UMass was officially on the bubble after the loss to George Mason. Granted, they were still on the right side of it, but after this win they are indisputably in as of right now. Lunardi has them as the 8th seed, playing Oklahoma State in the first round. Who coaches them anyway? Wouldn’t that be fun. The winner would go on to play Wichita State. Thinking of UMass facilalizing Travis Ford and then giving WSU the reverse UMass shocker gets me nice and warm in my loins.

Friday night the Minutemen host the VCU Rams, a team that had their number last season. I CANNOT wait for this game. More thoughts on that to come.

Go U!!

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