Scout Team Woes

This past week in the college basketball world was wild and entertaining, to say the least. Number 1 Texas lost not only once, but twice, Chandler Parsons of Florida hit another game-winner, Tennessee got romped by Georgia, K-State lost to Oklahoma State a mere five days after knocking off Texas, and we dropped our tenth loss of the season at Illinois State on Wednesday. This is certainly the time of year when college basketball starts to heat up around the nation, and it should be interesting to see how many things shake up.

In Creighton news, scout team hasn't been near as fun as of late. We typically run through our opponents' stuff against the starters the day before the game, and that's normally my chance to show my athletic prowess and offensive skill set. However, lately we've only been running through scout team at "3 quarter's speed", which infuriates me on multiple levels. For starters, I can't show off my athletic prowess and skill set that I previously mentioned at "3 quarter's speed." Secondly, what does "3 quarter's speed" even mean? Do i sprint or do I jog? Do I try to embarrass the starters or do I give them a little bit of a break? Do I dunk or just simply lay it up? You get the picture. In any event, "3 quarter's speed" needs to go. It doesn't do any of us any good.

The second issue I've been having with scout team lately is the fact that Josh "No Filter" Jones gets the best roles for every team. He always gets the role of the other teams' best offensive player, and it normally wouldn't bother me since Josh is a scholarship player and the rest of us are walk-ons, so just by the elimination process it would appear that he would be most qualified for such a postition. However, it does bother me, because let's be honest here...Josh doesn't need any more incentive to shoot more as it is. Josh got up a fair amount of shots in high school, and as the old saying goes, Josh has never seen a shot he didn't like, so telling Josh he can shoot whenever he wants on scout team is a lot like telling Tiger Woods that there's never any such thing as too much sex. What's even more absurd about giving Josh these roles is the fact that Josh feels the need to tell you how much he's going to shoot. "I'm about to get buckets," and "I'm gonna 'hibachi' that dude" would probably have to be my favorites. Josh's facial expression upon hearing he was going to be Osiris Eldridge for Illinois State and could shoot any time he wanted is reminiscent of the look on Rad Tad's face upon seeing John Madden pull up to him on the Hall of Fame bus in Little Giants. Utter joy.

Well as I drown my sorrows in the disappoint that currently is Creighton men's basketball scout team, the rest of the team does have much more important matters at hand. Beating Missouri State today would help pull all of our dedicated fans back from the ledge and get us back to .500. We're currently 4-4 in conference play and are trying desperately to not play a Thursday night game in St. Louis. (Sidenote: I say "we" and "us"when describing the team because I am, in fact, a member of the team, but I have no direct impact on the outcome of our games whatsoever, so just disregard most of the we's and us's I use on the blog. You know what I mean.)

Hope to see you all at the game tonight and am going to end this blog with a shoutout to my good friend Johnny Beutler, for he has been begging for one for weeks. I told him it may be difficult to fit him in, considering so many shout-out requests flood my CU-mail every day, but I kept my word and am giving John Beutler a shout-out on the Simple Plays blog. Call me when you're famous Johnny, and always remember...Simple plays, fellas, simple plays.

It's Business Time

Step back from the ledge. Please, for my sake, for your sake, for your daughter's sake (name that movie), step back from the ledge. Matt and I are back in business on the Simple Plays blog. Well, basically only me, but nevertheless, after a long, tumultous, and overdue hiatus of posts onto this blog, I will begin to post again. I apologize for such a long hiatus, and I know most of you have been e-mailing me and posting on my Facebook wall, demanding that I continue to post. Some of you have even dished out some violent threats my way, clearly upset at my lack of motivation towards the blog. (Joking of course). Honestly, the REAL reason I haven't posted since December 8th of the last decade is simply laziness. Now I could go off on a tangent giving excuse after excuse as to why I haven't posted since then, such as finals week, Christmas vacation, not wanting to get out my computer, playing an excessive amount of Mario 64, and spending too much time basking in my glory about 40-minute sessions of strictly defense in practice where I continue to get through ball screens like Dwight Freeney gets around the left tackle, BUT I would be lying to you. And that I cannot live with. I can't lie to my devoted fans and I cannot lie to myself. I have too much integrity.

Ok, secondly, the REAL reason my posting has been resurrected a la Jesus Christ himself is because I have to continue to post. Not for my own personal pleasure or some voice deep inside the depths of my soul that cries out that I need to post to make myself feel like I'm contributing to society in some way. No. I have been resurrected because my Journalism 215 class here at Creighton requires me to write a blog as one of the semester-long assignments in the class. So Simple Plays has new life and I'm more dedicated than ever to the blog. Mainly because my grade depends upon it, but still, dedication is now in full effect.

As the title suggests, it is business time ladies and gentlemen. As DJ Pauly D once said, "I don't even know what that religion is and I don't care; I just wanna get down to business." So let's get down to business. First off, some of you may be questioning my motives and originality with this blog due to the extreme popularity of Ohio State's Mark Titus' blog, Club Trillion. So it is currently time to clear a few things up. I, in no way, copied Mr. Titus in the creation of this blog or used his blog as inspiration or a jumping point for my blog. As a matter of fact, I had decided to start a blog about the outrageous things seen in a college locker room and seen through the eyes of a walk-on the day before I even discovered Club Trillion. And while I think Mr. Titus and his blog are hysterical, Simple Plays is wholly original and has a personality of its own.

Many things have happened in the world of the Jays throughout Simple Plays' hiatus. We've struggled this year. I know that, you know that, and the rest of the fanbase knows that. I have complete confidence we'll be dancing this year. Yes, you read that statement correctly. We're just now starting to figure out all of our roles and are starting to get that we need to play hard on a consistent basis to be able to win consistently. But you don't want to hear me be Coach Altman's parrott. You want the good stuff.

Where to even begin? Since my last post on Dec. 8th, we beat a couple of cupcakes, had an awesome three day Christmas break, and I got another four day break on top of that due to the team traveling to Indiana to play Indiana St. and Evansville. All in all, a phenomenal winter break for myself. And oh yeah, Billy Walsh about had a brawl at halfcourt with SIU's Nick Evans, Wayne Runnels almost overslept our game with Northern Iowa, and we got a massive new transfer by the name of Greg Echenique from Rutgers. Billy's near brawl completely energized our crowd and energized our team as we ended up beating our rivals in what was, basically, a must-win for us at the Qwest. One second I'm watching Nick Evans turn the ball over, and the next second I'm watching Billy sprint after Evans at halfcourt, all while going wild in Evans' face. Evans was ejected for striking Billy in the face.

Greg Echenique entered this world ready to dominate you either through his bad-ass Venezualen roots, his Suh-like frame, or his basketball skills. Take your pick. Although I've never seen Greg play; judging by his stats and the fact that he told Coach K he's coming to The O and he'd better recruit another Brian Zoubek instead of waste his time with him, I'd consider him a bad-ass and a good basketball player. Gregory just boosted the hell out of our scout team, and now I have someone to double-team ball screens with me effectively, so I'm pretty pumped. (Not that I need the help, but I'll take it from time to time). The only thing Gregory needs to learn is Coach Altman's most famous and mind-numbing quote...Simple plays, fellas, simple plays.