Heads, I Hate Them. Tails, I Hate Them.

This has nothing to do with the text below but it makes me laugh.

I’ll be spending my entire day hoping that a pterodactyl screeches into the Dean Dome and scoops up the entire rosters of both #14 Duke and #8 UNC. And Coach K and Roy Williams, who seems to enjoy sharing the Ol’ Roy nickname with a brand of dog food sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.

Due to the fact that I wouldn’t cheer for Duke if they played Al Qaeda, (Give me an A!), I will reluctantly pull for Carolina and their mascot Tyler Hansbrough, who can’t be one of our hotties because hotties have to be capable of closing their mouths. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he eats a chipmunk and drinks a gallon of whole milk before each game.

Tipoff’s at 4:00. Watch yourself, Vitale. YOU CAN’T OUTHUSTLE A PTERODACTYL, BAYBEEE! NOBODY outhustles a Pterodactyl.

Midcontinent Conference Panty Raid

The actual center of North America is in Rugby, North Dakota. There in the parking lot of a Conoco station you’ll find a fifteen-foot tall rock statue denoting it as, um, the middle of the continent. Just don’t tell that to Tulsa, Oklahoma, home to both this weekend’s Midcontinent Conference Championship and the world’s largest bronze sculpture, a 60 foot tall pair of praying hands. The bronze behemoth was commissioned by televangelist Oral Roberts, outsourced to Mexico, and originally placed in front of his faith-healing center…until it went bankrupt, proving that his prayers for funding (or domestic labor) haven’t exactly been answered. Currently the hands stand at the entrance to Oral Roberts University where they inspire both the student body and countless NBA tattoos.

On to the matchups.

#8 Centenary vs. #1 Oral Roberts

Tiny Centenary College names their sports teams like most places name their restrooms. The men are the Gents, the women are the Ladies, which at least is straightforward. I hate going to cutesy restaurants where I inevitably find myself standing in front of the door, legs crossed and jaw clenched, as I debate whether I’m a Hunter or a Gatherer. Regardless, after the first round of this tournament, you can pretty much flush the Gents’ season too.

Where ACC is Pronounced “Ack”.

We can’t all be winners. Just ask Roger Federer’s opponents, Peter O’Toole, or France. So for those of you loser-lovers uninterested in Texas A&M-Texas Texas-Texas A&M (per the Longhorns faithful), Maryland-Duke, or the TCT Praise-A-Thon, I would encourage you to turn your attention to tonight’s stellar Wake Forest-NC State matchup. Both teams are an embarrassing 4-10 in conference play, so this is a game that promises to feature blood, sweat, and more turnovers than a Romanian gymnastics meet. Tipoff’s at 9:00, tears by 9:08.

UPDATE: NC State wins, 73-66.  Don’t worry, Wake.  Tom Petty says that even the losers get lucky sometimes.  Although with a 33% shooting percentage, the Ladies…aren’t sure you could hit our, um, baskets either.

Horizon League Panty Raid

Tonight is the night you’ve all obviously been waiting for. No, not a new episode of Miami Ink although that’s what I’ll be watching, because nothing turns me on like well-muscled men with the potential for hepatitis. But those of you with Sirius satellite radio or a broadband connection (or both, if you like to party) can spend the evening catching the hot first-round action in the Horizon League tournament.

The Horizon League, I just learned ten minutes ago, is the home of the number #15 Butler Bulldogs, as well as eight other colleges with incongruous logos and mascot names. The League itself has been crowned with an icon that I know I’ve seen in the yellow pages advertising either a computer training center or a drug treatment facility.

The one thing to consider when filling out your Horizon League bracket (stop snickering…that’s not a joke) is that much like Sigourney Weaver in Copycat, these teams freak the hell out when they leave home. Since the current tournament format was instituted in 2003, the home team has gone 10-2 in the first round. Not only that, but overall this season the road record for the conference is a wretched 41-84. Agoraphobia is a bitch. And so am I for referencing a movie that starred Harry Connick Jr.

I’m a 2 Handicap, But I’d Still Give Him Strokes

So by now you’ve read this site—quite possibly every day, because we are awesome—and have noticed that it exists to celebrate not only sports, but also the delicious packages of ManCandy that play said sports. Right before we launched the site, all of the writers suggested hott-with-two-t’s athletes for the banner so our site radiated more heat than a defective electric blanket. All of the writers but me…

See, my long-standing athlete crush is a bit odd. Maybe it’s because he’s been alive longer than Alaska’s been a state. Or maybe because he plays a sport that some of you would consider to be a hobby, like cross-stitching, double-dutch, or setting small fires. But I think he’s hot and at least 2 of his 3 former wives would agree with me.

Allow me to preface this post with the confession that, well, I like old guys. Not creepy ‘is that an erection or is it rigor mortis’ old, but old enough to remember when a sport was a sport, when groovin’ was groovin’, when dancing was everything, and Ted Kennedy’s head wasn’t large enough to control the tides.