Hilarious Predictions on DePaul's site

[Cambridge]

Check out the Message Board thread entitled:

Outrageous Predictions for the 2005-2006 Big East

www.wearedepaul.com/

[Cambridge]

For those too lazy to find it...posted by BlueDemonExpress:

I was getting antsy, so I had to let the creative juices flow a bit.

With a nod to many of the espn.com Page 2 writers who entertain this type of format, and because we’re in the lull of the off-season, here’s one man’s half-serious attempt to predict the 2005-2006 Big East basketball season.

8/1/05 – Conference and non-conference schedules are set for Big East members.

8/2/05 – South Florida Head Coach Robert McCullum places a call to the Conference USA Headquarters, inquiring as to why Tulane, Southern Miss and East Carolina aren’t on the schedule. When informed that his team had moved to the Big East, McCullum shrieks, “They really let us IN?!”<br>
8/3/05 – Marquette makes news for two reasons:

1) The pre-conference schedule has been released. Marquette will be playing Wisconsin, Arizona, Towson (four times), The Art Institute of Chicago and a team of eight raffle winners from the Ho-Chunk Casino.

2) After all the alumni furor sparked by changing the school’s nickname to the “Gold”, the school announced that they will instead mimic the nickname of that night’s opponent, so as to bring a “diversity of mascots to the table”, to quote a university spokesperson. Big East officials were concerned about the confusion this might cause during games, but Head Coach Tom Crean allayed fears by promising that his team would not commit a foul this season. “By my count, we never committed a foul in Conference USA,” stated a steadfast Crean.

9/1/05 - Cincinnati Head Coach Bob Huggins, lacking endorsement deals after his current legal troubles, signs a contract to become a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association. “I’m doing this for Roy Bright, and all the other Roy Brights out there in the world!” Huggins proclaimed to a raucous crowd of boosters. The next day, cbs.sportsline.com’s Gregg Doyel writes a 6,000-world article entitled, “Why Bob Huggins Should Be Your Hero”.

10/5/05 – Every player Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino has considered recruiting for 2006 through 2008 declare themselves eligible for the 2006 NBA Draft.

10/15/05 – “Midnight Madness” kicks off practice around the league, except for Rutgers, who can’t get a group of guys playing a pick-up game to give up the court.

10/16/05 – Providence Coach Tim Welsh watches his team practice for the first time without Ryan Gomes and openly weeps.

11/1/05 – Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim mentions that he’s worried about the rugged travel in the Orange’s non-conference schedule this season. Syracuse will be leaving the state once to play Quinnipiac, which is located in Connecticut. This schedule is much tougher than last year’s, when Syracuse played its first 15 games within the boundaries of the state of New York.

11/15/05 – Pitt announced today that they will be playing this season using elastic jerseys for this season instead of the traditional mesh. “We needed more ‘stretch’,” remarked a team manager. “Carl Krauser kept doing that thing where he would tug at the name ‘Pittsburgh’ on the jersey to show the crowd, and it really ruined the integrity of the jersey.”<br>
11/30/05 – After West Virginia center Kevin Pittsnogle helped defeat Division III Wabash with his 3-fo-14 marksmanship from three-point range, West Virginia dictionaries officially add the word “pittsnogled” to their vocabularies. It means, “To bludgeon an opponent using three-point shots from a goofy-looking center playing out of position.” It is akin to a word in Iowa dictionaries: “lohaused”, named after former Iowa player Brad Lohaus.


12/3/05 – After a surprising inaugural season for Charlie Weis that lands Notre Dame football in the Orange Bowl, Notre Dame basketball head coach Mike Brey gets confused and accepts a bid to the NIT. “The NIT has a proud tradition, as does Notre Dame. It’s a perfect match,” said a surprisingly upbeat Brey after his team was defeated 87-76 by IUPUI.

12/15/05 – The Wisconsin Badgers defeat the Marquette Badgers 75-59. Said Crean, “We were really thrown off because we’ve never seen a gold badger before. Those people in the art department did their darnedest to make it look real, but our players couldn’t stop laughing.”<br>
12/30/05 – In a break from tradition, Villanova refuses to play Temple in one of the annual battles of Philadelphia. Villanova Head Coach Jay Wright said, “We saw what [Temple Head Coach John] Chaney orders his players to do last year, especially against superior talent.” Responded Chaney, “Shut up and bring it, pretty boy.” Temple Athletic Director Bill Bradshaw could not be reached for comment, as reporters called him during his daily nap.

1/7/06 – All possible recruits for the 2009-2012 seasons who have heard of Rick Pitino declare themselves eligible for the 2006 NBA Draft.

1/22/06 – Seton Hall defeats Rutgers 66-63 to win the “Battle of New Jersey”. Although neither team is headed to post-season play, victorious Pirates’ Head Coach Louis Orr receives Season Three of “The Sopranos” on DVD to commemorate the win.

1/30/06 – The St. John’s Red Storm defeats the Marquette Red Storm 68-53. After the game, ESPN Analyst Jay Bilas does a 15-minute retrospective on St. Travis. He ends the piece by singing a modified version of Simon & Garfunkel’s hit, “Mrs. Robinson”: “Where have you gone, St. Travis of the ‘ball? Milwaukee turns its lonely eyes to you (woo woo woo).”<br>
2/11/06 – wearedepaul.com stops to ponder the question, “If John Calipari is talking but he’s not in your conference anymore, does he really make a sound?”<br>
2/17/06 – Fresh off their annual loss to Wake Forest and floundering in the middle of the conference, Bob Huggins orders Jihad Muhammad to get arrested for something to help the team focus.

2/24/06 – Providence falls to 1-11 in the league after a 91-63 loss to Connecticut. Towson Head Coach Pat Kennedy makes a collect call to his former protégé Tim Welsh to offer words of sympathy, and also for advice on how to deal with the media when your team has only one league victory.

3/2/06 – The Georgetown Hoyas defeat the Marquette Hoyas 69-61. Said Crean after the game, “We couldn’t get pumped up for this game because no one in the art department knew how to design a costume for a ‘hoya’, so we had no mascot. What the hell is a ‘hoya’, anyway?”

3/7/06 – As hosts of the Big East Tournament, St. John’s players take it upon themselves to show the nightlife to the other 11 teams. By the end of the evening, 28 players from nine different teams were arrested in various strip clubs for engaging in unlawful acts, including seven Cincinnati players. As he was escorted away in handcuffs, an unnamed Louisville player exclaimed, “Wow, this is SO much better than Memphis!” Gregg Doyel writes an article the next day blaming the incident on Cincinnati’s President for not extending Bob Huggins’ contract.

3/11/06 – As one of the few schools with no players involved in the law-breaking, DePaul coasts to its first Big East Championship and a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

And this is how the 2005-2006 Big East season will go…unless I’m wrong, of course.

[TBird41]

CambridgeHoya said:

3/2/06 – The Georgetown Hoyas defeat the Marquette Hoyas 69-61. Said Crean after the game, “We couldn’t get pumped up for this game because no one in the art department knew how to design a costume for a ‘hoya’, so we had no mascot. What the hell is a ‘hoya’, anyway?”

Gee...who saw the guy making a joke about the meaning of "Hoya"? Did anyone see this coming? Anyone?

Of course, since they are new to the Big East, maybe they're subscribing to the theory behind NBC's old rerun ads--"If I haven't seen it, it's new to me!"

[RBHoya]

Very creative for a non-professional writer. Funniest one was definitly the Providence coach openly weeping upon seeing his team practice without Gomes.

[walleyeguy]

Wow, I finally move from long-time lurker to real-life poster...

BDE also does Bubble Reports, I think he usually starts them around February. Of course there is a DePaul slant but he covers all the conferences pretty well. He does a wonderful job of breaking down RPI's, schedules, and provides good insight as far as what teams are looking to play (or back) into the field of 65.

No ACC bias is just an extra bonus.

I'm not looking forward to being torn in two every time DPU and the Hoyas play (again) - but at least I don't have to follow Conference Hee-Haw (as it was called on the DePaul boards) anymore.

[hoyalove4ever]

It's about time for the Hoyas to play Depaul again. I miss those matchups. Can we throw a Meyer into the mix somehow?

[Gold Hoya]

RBHoya said:

Very creative for a non-professional writer. Funniest one was definitly the Providence coach openly weeping upon seeing his team practice without Gomes.

I miss Pete Gillen. After Croshere left in '97 following their Elite Eight run, he made what might have been my favorite quote ever:

We're so young, we're not gonna watch game film. We're gonna watch Rugrats.

[IceHoya]

Gold said:

I miss Pete Gillen. After Croshere left in '97 following their Elite Eight run, he made what might have been my favorite quote ever:

Only one thing came to mind when I read that post: GOD SHAMMGOD. Possibly the best name in college basketball / sports history.

[JimmyHoya]

Didn't they also have a guy named Abdul Abdul or something, but he spelled his firrst and last name differently?

Oh those crazy Friars....whatever will they do next....

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Abdul Abdullah was one of the precursors to God Shamgodd (born Shamgod Wells), and John Linehan, in the long tradition of pain-in-the-neck sub 5'8" PC point guards.

[hoyalove4ever]

I think my HS played against Shamgod at one point when I was a freshman. I remember one of the guys on the team at the time saying something like, "There was nothing we could do...he's God."

I wonder what God is up to these days.

[RDF]

God Shamgod is the former "Shammgod Wells" so if you played against God in High School, you either have magical preminition powers, or you were hanging in Jeff Spicoli's van too long and caught some "Aroma" in second hand variety.

As for DePaul's return to the schedule--cool, although I'd like it a lot more if we'd face them wearing our traditional Blue and Grey and they'd wear their "SLOB" look which was jerseys designed to worn untucked and Marquette shared the look. It was cool and Blue Demon fan can correct me but I'm pretty certain that Ray Clay the guy who was the Bulls PA Announcer also worked the DePaul games. They should bring him back too.

[hoyalove4ever]

I never played against Shammgod, but my HS played against him before I was on varsity, and I do remember a lot of the players were joking about his name and making references to him having powers, etc. He was supposed to be pretty nice in HS.

[Gold Hoya]

RDF said:

It was cool and Blue Demon fan can correct me but I'm pretty certain that Ray Clay the guy who was the Bulls PA Announcer also worked the DePaul games. They should bring him back too.

It's possible it was Clay in the early-mid '80s, but for at least a bit in the late '80s and early '90s I think it was the same PA announcer as the Bears.

PA Guy: "There's a timeout"
Fans: "Where?"
PA Guy: "On the field (or court)"
Fans: "Oh."

[Frank Black]

That post was excellent. I need to get my act together.

[wearedepaul]

Jim Riebandt is the PA announcer that you're thinking of. He still does some DePaul games and Chicago Bears games. He did DePaul games as far back as the late 70's. I can't recall Ray Clay ever doing DePaul games.