Sunday, March 05, 2017

This Week in Wrenball: There Are Mountains

Sublime confluence of superstition, laziness, and Gheorghian repetitive tendencies this morning, as we get you ready for the Tribe's 2:00 tip against top-seeded UNCW in the CAA Tournament semifinals.

As we told you previously, W&M needs senior Omar Prewitt to play to his potential to have any chance of breaking history's grip on the program. Prewitt scored 10 of the Tribe's first 16 points on the way to a 20-point, 13-rebound effort in a 71-66 quarterfinal win over Elon. One down.

Number two will be much harder, and 71-66 is more likely to be a halftime score than a final. UNCW dropped 101 on W&M in the teams' first meetings before the Wrens turned the tables, scoring 96 to blow the Seahawks out in Williamsburg. Both teams have strong offenses and like to play at reasonably quick pace. Wilmington is deeper, and in Devotae Cacok have an inside presence that the Tribe is hard-pressed to match.

The Tribe are underdogs, there's no question. For them to reach their third CAA final in four years, a lot of things have to click. You know what one of them is.

23 comments:

rob said...

we're all mesmerized by uncw's uniforms and can't comment?

Whitney said...

Not going too swimmingly.

rob said...

take wilmington to the sweet 16, assuming they win tomorrow. it could happen.

Shlara said...

.....sigh....

rob said...

yep.

rob said...

i was just told on twitter that i'm a typical w&m fan who cares more about being competitive than winning. so i'm gonna reevaluate my priorities.

zman said...

I'm not sure I understand what that means, but if it involves refusing to go to another conference then I agree with them.

Whitney said...

Z, you think we should go to another conference?

rob said...

i made a comment that the tribe played pretty well but ran into a buzzsaw, and he said that i wasn't holding the tribe to a high enough standard. not sure i understand how accepting a loss to a clear favorite and the best team in the league represents some sort of vichy capitulation, but there we are.

and no conference we want to be in is gonna take the tribe, unless you mean the patriot league.

Whitney said...

UNC-W won today because they wiretapped the Tribe facilities and locker room. I don't have any evidence of that, nor can I even point to any source. But it's like Norm Nixon/Watergate!

zman said...

A less competitive conference would make it easier to get into the tournament.

I saw Nick Mangold dropping his kid off at a birthday party. He is immense. No idea how he crammed himself into his Panamera.

rob said...

i can dig that, z.

zman said...

I would imagine that the Patriot league is less competitive and its members likely have similar academic standards for athletes as W&M.

TR said...

When I was in the undergraduate business school, there was a great Marketing professor named Todd Mooradian. His running joke to everybody was "Be proud you're at W&M. You could be at Elon, majoring in drinking grain alcohol." Every time I see that school in our conference, think of that guy and want better for W&M.

FYI - Mooradian just left W&M to be the Dean of Louisville's Business School. He had 169% of the aggregate coolness of the business school. He was unlike the Accounting Professor, whose comment to me after I met with him to discuss a bad exam grade was "Tim, we're all swimming here in the deep end. You're still in the low end. I need you to swim out to us." That was it.

Fuck you, Bill Geary. You can swim in my hot urine.

I may have gotten off track. 28 days of sobriety keeping me salty.

zman said...

I had a similar interaction with a pre-law advisor a few years after I graduated. About 10-12 years later he hit me up for a donation to the school. I called him, left a message about his solicitation letter, he called back quickly and I told him that I found it ironic that he didn't help me back then, and now he's asking me for help. I told him I was going to make a donation for the first time ever until I saw his signature, and that this strengthened my resolve to never give them a dime. He said he understood. It was cathartic. And yes, I'm an asshole of unhealthy proportions.

Mark said...

I'm giggling at TR's comment.

rob said...

that's real commitment to assholery, z

zman said...

Core principles rob. To be fair, the guy was so unhelpful and dismissive and just plain wrong that my initial 90 second phone call with him felt like a slap in the face. As in I felt physically slapped. By contract, I was in a graduate program at the time and the school's undergraduate adviser was tremendously helpful. So I donate there.

Whitney said...

I think that gives core principles a bad name.

There's a debate that could be generated about whether there's a moral obligation to return available funds to the academic institutions that bestowed education on you and a prestigious alma mater name to type onto your resume. And whether tuition and successful completion of coursework is enough payment in the transaction. And whether the schools should or even do have a business model that doesn't hinge on such almunal contributions. And whether those who don't give due to specific umbrage over past events are just veiling stinginess, laziness, or a desire to wield power over an organization that once wielded it unjustly heavy-handedly over them. And whether you can or should write checks to your alma mater with very specific strings attached like "To be used only for purchase of popcorn makers in the student center" or "Directed exclusively to purchase books by Dutch authors" or "$1 for every minute the illuminated sign for Trinkle Hall has the 'r' burned out" or "Scholarship funds only for people named Loretta" or "For hiring Random Idiots to play Homecoming."

There could be such a debate. Somewhere else, of course.

Danimal said...

Hanging out in Jersey City tonight! Who is with me?
Okay, no one. That's fine. Any suggestions?

Danimal said...

Looking for a decent meal/beer...

TR said...

Danimal - Zeppelin Hall Biergarten.

Danimal said...

Liberty Steakhouse which has an adjacent bar is a short par 4 away from my hotel so walked there and had a quick meal and 2 beers. Decent spot...