Date In Dayton

You ever notice how every time anybody in the history of the world has ever yelled out “Sweeeet Car-o-line!” someone has always chimed in with the “DUH-DUH-DUH” to follow? Of course you have. I pretty much always yell out “Sweeeet Car-o-line!” just to see how many people I’m with the sing the follow up. The only thing more inevitable, however, than making trumpet noises to my favorite Neil Diamond song (which is interesting, considering that my favorite “Diamond in the Rough” song is “Cherry, Cherry”) is the close-up shot of the sad walk-on on the losing team’s bench in the NCAA tournament.

In case you are like me and you like going to bed before 1 in the a.m., our game against Siena was quite the thriller. From what I heard, even those of you who did chug a few Red Bulls just so you could stay up to see me do a celebratory cartwheel were interrupted by the Wisconsin Buzzcuts and their upset of Florida State. Yet another example of the NCAA conspiring to keep me down. Anyway, we lost to Siena after Ronald Moore essentially pulled a Ron Lewis, only Gus Johnson didn’t have the call, which will forever make his shot about half as cool as Ron’s.

I like to consider myself a student of the game. I watch film, take note of weak areas in my game, and diligently practice until I get things clicking on all cylinders (where does that phrase come from anyway?). I’m obviously talking about my skills as an attention-getting walk-on (I love hyphenating words, especially when it’s un-necessary). Just like normal players have their own unique ways of getting the job done on the court, walk-ons have various ways of scoring camera time. Because we only have two walk-ons, a team oriented approach is a little tough for me to pull off. Therefore, I focus on a more individualistic approach, which is evident by my wearing a towel around my neck and my refusal to link up. (By the way, I said I hate linking up on The B.S. Report, only to have Kyle Madsen link me up against my will two days later. I was none too pleased.)

Heading into the tournament, I laid out two goals that I wanted to see through. The first obviously being that I wanted a group of coeds to make signs and scream for Club Trillion at our public shoot-around. The other goal was to make it on “One Shining Moment” at the end of the year. Surprisingly, the first goal was met when a group of three girls from the University of Dayton made signs and t-shirts for Club Trillion and presumably yelled obscenities at The Villain the entire time. Good work, ladies. My other goal, however, appears to be in serious jeopardy.

(By the way, I got an e-mail from a reader saying that he saw Gusalina at the game and even heard him yelling at me the entire game. I can’t say for sure if the e-mail was a hoax or not, but the sheer thought of Gus being at the game is awesome.)

To make sure that I left nothing to chance, I prepared myself to be on “One Shining Moment” by watching every single “One Shining Moment” ever. EVER. I studied what should be done in case of a close victory (bear hug the player that made the game-winning play) and what should be done in case of a close loss (what I actually did). After Ronald Moore hit the game winner, I went into my “How could this happen?” pose and was certain that every CBS camera in the house was zoned in on my reaction. I had glazed over eyes that looked like they could burst into tears at any time. I had a towel covering my mouth in hopes that the viewer would assume I was trying to hide my quivering lip. I had everything CBS wanted, yet I kept my dignity by not crying, mostly because I didn’t want to have to make an NBA Live commercial to defend myself (Coincidentally, I’m growing out a mustache right now that some could say is inspired by Morrison).

Had CBS caught my reaction, I probably would have made it on “One Shining Moment” when the song got to the line “…and when it’s done, win or lose, you always did your best…” like Marcus Camby did in 1996. Instead, the only footage CBS caught of me was when I decided to watch the game from a bird’s eye view and jumped at least three inches out of my seat. I guess someone could have filmed my pre-bawling face and CBS could still include me, but at the moment it looks like I’m on the outside looking in. I guess there’s always next year (spoken like a true Cubs fan).

The worst part about this year’s tournament, though, is the fact that we didn’t play in my desired location of Miami or The Villain’s desired location of “Looney Tune Land cause I want to be able to stretch my arm and dunk like Jordan did there.” I still can’t tell if he was serious when he said that. Anyway, we were forced to play in Dayton, which is so close to Columbus that I probably could have made a shot in UD Arena from my apartment. To make matters worse, our hotel was isolated from any entertainment whatsoever, meaning the only thing we did that was remotely “fun” was go to Buffalo Wild Wings (I still only count two W’s).

Because, as a collective whole, the Ohio State Buckeyes are upstanding citizens, on this particular night it was decided that we would wear dress clothes to B-dubs. Instead of just abiding by the rules and going about my business, I intentionally went overboard with my attire and wore slacks and a tie, making me a real life Jim Halpert. We ended up going in the back door (easy with the jokes, this is a family friendly blog) and sat in a private room, so literally nobody but about two or three waitresses saw the first class attire I was wearing.

Of these two or three waitresses, only one waited on the table consisting of B.J. Mullens, Kyle Madsen, Danny Peters, and yours truly. And of the one who waited on my table, one was dared by B.J. to eat a Blazin’ wing, which apparently is the hottest kind of wing B-dubs serves. Our waitress claimed that she already ate a Blazin’ wing for initiation (apparently B-dubs is a sorority) when she started working there a few months ago and was literally crying and sweating for the rest of the day (her words, not mine). It was neither confirmed or denied if her reaction was in any way similar to the atomic pepper scene from “Dumb and Dumber.” At any rate, after hearing this, B.J. naturally knew he should make it his mission to get her to eat a Blazin’ wing.

B.J. proposed that if he first ate a Blazin’ wing, she would have to do the same. She agreed and went to the back to get two Blazin’ wings, this after she had already brought out our original orders. When she returned, she had two wings and a small carton of milk, which apparently made it much easier for the wing to go down. B.J. made the waitress feel bad for not bringing him a carton of milk and thus she went back to the kitchen and grabbed another. It was at this point B.J. swapped his Blazin’ wing for one of his Honey BBQ wings from his original order.

When she returned, B.J. downed his wing and just sat there like he was the coolest dude on the planet and nothing could possibly faze him. She then ate a fraction of a bite of her wing , chugged the carton of milk, and started crying and sweating. Apparently she was telling the truth about her reaction the first time she ate a hot wing. After waving her hands at her face like her mouth was burning or something, our waitress disappeared to the kitchen and didn’t come back out for a solid ten minutes. B.J. never told her that he switched them, but he did ask for a doggy bag and put all his uneaten wings, including the Blazin’ one that he neglected, into the bag. I can’t say with absolute certainty that he did, but in my mind B.J. inadvertently ate the wing some two hours later while watching re-runs of “Catdog” and wondering exactly how they relieve themselves. Yeah, that sounds about right.

___________________________________________________

After the last entry about how I like to mess with my teammates while they are doing interviews, the spotlight was on me (unfortunately, only figuratively) to step up to the plate at the NCAA tournament media session. I think I did just that. Jon Diebler was standing up while doing an on-camera interview with a local TV station in the middle of the locker room. Because the camera was focused on his face and couldn’t see the rest of his body, I sneaked up from behind him and pulled his pants to his ankles before I scurried back to my seat (relax, he had underwear on). He tried his best to finish the interview with his pants at his ankles, since bending over to pull them up would result in ruining the entire interview. Instead, he laughed his way through the rest of it and pulled his pants up after about twenty seconds.

Also, after telling the story of putting the marker in The Villain’s face, I was e-mailed by Adam Jardy of Buckeye Sports Bulletin with a picture of my marker maneuver. He caught me in the early stages of putting the marker in The Villain’s face, but as the scene progressed, I forced the marker closer and closer. Nonetheless, here’s the picture. Good work, Adam.

While I’m on the topic of putting The Villain in his place, I thought I would point something out that virtually none of you are aware of. The Villain had a blog going during our brief run in the NCAA tournament. Obviously, because he is my sworn enemy, none of you read it. I had to read it, though, to scout out the competition. In my professionally amateur opinion, his blog is nothing more than two scoops of blandness with some boring fudge on top. He makes no references to 90’s movies, doesn’t talk about any pranks he’s pulled, and for whatever reason fails to link to any YouTube videos. Overall, his performance in the blogosphere is equivalent to my performance on the basketball court. When I was in kindergarten.

___________________________________________________

With the conclusion of our season, there have been questions circulating around (my parents’ house) about what exactly the future of this blog will be. Because I said from the onset that this blog would be about the stuff that goes on outside of basketball, I really don’t see why the offseason should mean I can’t keep up with the blog. I probably won’t write as often since there won’t be as much going on in my life, but I still find ways to have a good time in the offseason and I would hate to not let the Trillion Man March in on all the secrets. I’ll be here churning out posts all summer, more than likely discussing how it hurts so good to be a Cubs fan. Really, I could just straight up plagiarize all of Bill Simmons’ stuff pre-2004 and substitute the Cubs for the Red Sox to convey how I feel about the Lovable Losers. At any rate, I’ll be posting all offseason and even plan on starting a podcast with Keller after school gets out in June.

___________________________________________________

Siena was slightly excited after beating us and failed to shake hands, much like Purdue did the game before. Apparently beating Ohio State warrants a rushing onto the court, which really isn’t all that surprising to me. Also, I only played in two games this year so my bone-crushing screen count was brought to a screeching halt in December. 23 one armed embraces and 1 bone-crushing screen made for a decent season.

Streak for the Cash Group Leaders: J. Staats, S. Chapman (streak of 13 wins)

Streak for the Cash Group Loser: M. Rumbaugh (streak of 12 losses)

One Armed Embraces: 23 to date (0 last game)

Bone-Crushing Screens: 1 to date (0 last game)

___________________________________________________

Your awesome YouTube was sent in to me by CJ B. There's your shout-out, CJ. And here's your video.

Your Friend and My Favorite,

Mark Titus

Club Trillion Founder