Nearing Orlando and Thanksgiving

As most of you already know, the squad is traveling to Orlando, Florida on Tuesday to play in the popular and competitive Old Spice Classic. First up on the slate is 15th ranked Michigan, who is currently 2 and 0 against teams you've more than likely never heard of. Nonetheless, Michigan is athletic, talented, and well coached. Guard Mannie Harris has a legitimate shot at being a first round draft pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, so we'll have our hands full. However, before we move on to Orlando, we have to take care of business against Arkansas-Little Rock this afternoon. UALR beat us at their place last season and out-rebounded us by twenty, so all that's been talked about all week in practice is "we gotta pop somebody on our blockouts fellas," courtesy of Coach Altman. I wish I could get out there and crack some skulls and gravitate to the ball like Dennis Rodman gravitates towards the ball and drugs, but I can't, so no sense in wishing what if.

In more interesting news, Justin Carter cut off his ever so popular and symbolic dreadlocks yesterday afternoon. Besides the fact he now looks like Josh Jones and I thought we had added a new player to our team when I first saw him, it's a nice, new look for Justin. Josh Jones, in fact, took Justin to his barber and said, "my barber was gettin at J dawg." Translation: Josh's barber was making fun of and playing around with Justin as he was cutting his long locks. Amongst the many comparisons Josh's barber made between Justin and other pop culture icons as his hair was getting shorter and shorter by the minute, I thought the funniest were '98 Kobe and Jaleel White, who played Steve Urkel in Family Matters. People will be shocked when they see Justin at the game today. Whoopi Goldberg, as Cavel calls him, has retired.

Amongst all of the crap Kenny Lawson has to put up with from everyone on the team day in and day out, today's version of crap was probably one of the most hysterical. Evidently, if you have a BlackBerry, you can call people from other people's numbers in your phone book. I have no clue how it works, but you can call someone and it will show up on the caller id on their phone as someone else's number. Seeing this as a phenomenal opportunity to prank call Kenny, Chad Millard (Chad wants his alias to be known as Billy Walsh, and yes, I know that the purpose of an alias is so that nobody will know who you really are, but you wouldn't understand anything if I started calling Chad Billy Walsh from now on without giving you a head's up first, so from now on, Chad's new name and alias (sort of) on this blog will be, Billy Walsh) and Casey Harriman prank called Kenny as Coach Altman, which Kenny didn't pick up on the first three times he answered, or he is just dumb enough to continually pick up the phone when it, clearly, is not Coach Altman. The final time Kenny answered the phone, Billy Walsh and Casey claimed that they were Casey's grandmother, finally sending Kenny into an outrage, claiming Billy and Casey were liars and that it wasn't Coach Altman, nor was it Casey's grandmother, on the other end of the phone (Ya think, Kenny?). Kenny was ranting in the locker room at this morning's shootaround about how somebody prank called him claiming they were Coach Altman, and without any anonymous tips, blamed the horrific event on Billy and Casey. The two culprits stood firm, however, and Kenny couldn't come up with a solution as to who was, in fact, the infamous Altman caller. I'm sure there will be many more Altman to Kenny pranks in the future, so I will try to keep you updated as much as possible.

As I end this most recent post, I encourage you to support the squad over thanksgiving in Orlando and cheer your blue little hearts for the Jays!!!!!!!!!! Yay!! No, but seriously, please do. I will leave you with this absurdly hilarious YouTube clip of Leon, the African-American man currently living with Larry David on the past couple of seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in the Best of Leon. Enjoy, and as always...Simple plays, fellas, simple plays.