David Letterman, the spawn of a golden nugget and a tale of youth inexperience and free throws

First of all, I will most likely not give an update for the week after today, so Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. You should get plenty of sleep with all the terrible football on Thursday.
Texas - A&M, Det - Tennessee, Seattle - Dallas, and Philly - Cardinals (which only a handful of people get to watch due to the fact that not many people want to go to a bar on Thanksgiving night and even fewer people have the surprisingly legal NFL network).

Congratulations are in order for David Letterman's Alma Mater, the Ball State Cardinals. They finished the regular season undefeated. Albeit in the MAC, it is still quite an achievement. It's too bad the likes of Utah and the Bright Blues at Boise state are undefeated too. It would have been fun to watch the Cardinals in a big Bowl game. 12-0, way to go.

Speaking of zeros on a stat sheet, did you hear about Stephen Curry? The offspring of former Denver Nugget sharpshooter, Dell, was held scoreless last night after coming into the game averaging 35 points per game. I was initially amazed when I saw the stat, then I saw highlights of the game. The other team, who ended up losing by 30, double teamed Mr. Curry without the ball! That means they were consistently playing 3 on 4. What a ballsy move and what a silly decision. We will continue to follow this story throughout the year.

The KU game last night. Syracuse 89- KU 81, OT.
The Hawks played great in the first half with Sherron, Tyshawn Taylor (a great surprise) and Cole-nan the Barbarian dominated the first half for the Jayhawks.
Even Brady Morningstar made the highlight reel with a huge swat and three clutch free throws just before half after inexplicably getting fouled on a 3 from the corner.

The second half started out about the same, then KU turned the ball over about 4 times in a row to have a lead of 10 cut to 2 in a split second. The teams traded baskets, KU missed free throws (not just a couple, they missed 9 of 13 over a stretch in the second half, all too familiar against this foe) and eventually The Orange found a way back and won it in overtime.

I'm not that upset the Jayhawks lost, just more upset that Syracuse won. They didn't deserve it.

Today to break down the game, lets focus on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
The Good:

• The Play of the freshmen, (Especially Tyshawn and the Twins)
• We saw some good decision making and scoring by TT (he was single handedly beating 'Cuse after about 10 minutes 11-10)
  
• A variety of pluses from the two-headed Morris Monster (3 pointers, rebounds, passing - Marcus lead the team in assists with 6).
  
• The team will continue to rely on these players, and in order for the team to succeed, they will have to perform
• Cole's first half, Sherron's first 35 minutes
• Cole was an animal, all over the place in the first half. The team kind of went away from him in the second half, but he still managed to get a double double.
  
• Sherron played really good for most of the game carrying the team when they needed him the most. He hit a ton of clutch shots to give us the lead or stop a run. He will be a great pro soon.
  
• Bobby Knight
• After listening to Dickie V plug just about every east coast school as well as the 'Cuse guards all game long - that Harris kid is good, but I'm not that impressed with anyone else, KU was sloppy- I am more aware of the fact that I like the O'Reily Auto Parts-sweater-wearing former coach. He's just enjoyable

The Bad:

• Turnovers (not the tasty apple kind either)
• After only having 10 as a team against Washington, KU had 17. Not terrible, I will probably kill for 17 turnovers later in the year from this team, but all the turnovers came at inopportune times. Syracuse made quite a run after Sherron turned it over a couple times in a row.
  
• On that note, the guards turned the ball over 13 times compared to 3 in the last game.
• Syracuse only turned it over 14 times for the game.
  
• Sherron's last 5 minutes
• He tried to do too much. I understand that he doesn't trust the young guys yet, but he needs to. The team last year relied on each other to hit the open shot and won with it. Sherron tried to hit every shot himself and it didn't go as well as planned
• I have decided to call Sherron Mighty Mouse. Imagine sticking a cape and big ears on that guy. Does he not look exactly like Mighty Mouse?!?!? Plus we need another super hero with Cole-nan the Barbarian.

Uncanny!

You can't convince me I'm wrong. Impossible.


The Ugly:

• Syracuse Uni's
• The Nike uniforms that are form fitting look like they should be made for some guy trying to impress girls at the gym. Hold on a thought is formulating. Wait for it... Wait for it..... Wait for it..........
  So good marketing ploy; I want one of those uniforms. Just not an Orange one. Impressing girls is cool. Still ugly, they would just impress girls
  
• Devendorf is the ugliest. His tattoos, his haircut, and I could be a lot meaner. He was trying to talk trash to Tyshawn, who totally out played him all game. As a freshman. Now that's ugly.
  
• Free Throw Shooting
• Yeah, it started good and ended terribly. After starting 5 for 5, Kansas went 6 for 15 to finish regulation. Awful. You can't blame it on one player either, it was a team effort.

That's what I got for the game. Kind of disappointing, but not too far from expected. This is a young team that has to learn how to handle pressure and how to be clutch. They have to learn how to close the door on teams (a trademark of every Bill Self team, save the one that won it all).

See you all on the flip side,
DDSF