Nothing But Iron: Gators Rule, Bruce Second to Last in Pool April 3, 2007 by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. I heard talk of incredulous people demanding to see Greg Oden’s birth certificate. Yes, the birth certificate would be interesting, but I will believe Oden is 19 when I see the carbon-dating evidence to prove it. What I really want to see is Joakim Noah’s college transcript. Noah is a fine ball player and a bonafide repeat national champion, but if he is a college student, then I am a Nobel Peace Prize-winning particle physicist. By now there will have been much analysis of the reasons Florida won and OSU lost. Thad Matta said, graciously, in his post-game television interview that his team was powerless to defend Florida’s amazing shots. With all due respect to Matta, I disagree. It was not the work of acrobats, contortionists or magicians that sealed the fate of the Buckeyes, it was the seemingly simple act of converting open jump shots from 15 feet and points beyond with nut crushing reliability. Granted, some of those points beyond were almost to Gainesville, but the bottom line is that good shooting helps win championships. Florida’s proficiency made for harsh contrast with the shortcomings of the second-place Buckeyes. So many times this season, Ohio State closed gaps or thwarted opponents’ would-be rallies with clutch shooting. So many times in the championship game it looked and felt like they could do so again. But again and again and again, the shots rattled out and bounced away, leaving me to wonder where the heck those errant shots were when we needed them, such as February 15 (UW at OSU) and March 12 (Big Ten Championship). My son said that the reason the Buckeyes lost was because Oden played too much. It seems counter intuitive, particularly when you consider Oden’s game stats, but Patrick’s point is that the Buckeyes rarely suffered, and often looked great when Oden was sidelined with foul trouble. I do wonder, with so much focus on getting the ball inside, if there was a negative impact on OSU’s usually-potent and much-missed perimeter game. Even though I had Florida as my Pride Pool champion, I was pulling for Ohio State. I did so out of Big 10 Conference solidarity. I did so because OSU was the underdog. Mostly, I did so with the belief that a national title might help promote the exodus of Ninja-quick Mike Conley, Jr. and man-prodigy Oden to the NBA. With an oh-so-close tournament run and most of the team returning, both players have ample incentive to come back to finish and unfinished job. Rick Reilly, in his Letter to Greg Oden (SI, April 2, 2007) is not helping matters. Reilly, on faux yellow legal paper in his back-page column, lists reasons Oden should stay and reasons he should go. The go list is nothing more than a loosely-disguised stay list. Why don’t you just dot the flippin’ i, Rick? My retort is this: Greg, you are ready. You have worked most of your giant life for a chance to play pro ball. College was simply a means to that end. If the NBA doesn’t work out, there is this thing called compound interest to fall back on. The door is open. So many things, like an injury to your knee, or an injury to your other knee, or simultaneous injuries to both wrists, could close that door in less time than it takes you to let go of the rim without getting a technical foul. How wise would Reilly be if you get hurt and ended up relying on a mere college degree for your success? I have a copy of the same letter for your sidekick, but my guess is that he was returning anyway, maybe to work on his jump shot, which is wholly unnecessary since Conley can get all the way to the basket in less time than it takes me to reach for the TiVo remote for a slow-mo appreciation of what the hell just happened. As for the Pride Pool, Eric Evans is the champion. Eric is the George Mason of our pool, with finishes of 26th, 30th and 26th in the three years that preceded his triumph. Kurt Rongstad came on strong with Florida to win, but he was a lay up short of the crown. It is the second straight year that a Rongstad finished as runner up. Kurt’s son Derek, playing under a pseudonym, finished second in 2006. UW senior Danielle Kamps, took bronze medalist honors, or would have if I gave out medals. Last year’s winner, Connor Lagman, finished 34th, but I don’t taunt 14 year olds unless they taunt me first. Come to think of it, Na-nah na-nah na-nah. With Florida’s win I moved up seven places, to finish a sub-respectable 24th. In the process I passed my mother, Gayle, and my niece, Jenna, as if they were stationary, which, in fact, they were. Patrick Lagman took Lagman family honors with his 6th place finish. Some contestants took issue with the Pride Pool scoring methodology. Scott Escher, who ultimately finished 13th, couldn’t understand why his name wasn’t higher in the standings. I had this to say: I studied your brackets, and I was able to identify two problems: 1) You have too many incorrect picks. 2) You do not have enough correct picks. One scoring nuance that you might not be aware of is that you only receive points for correct picks. That is why I languish in 31st (at the time of reply) place. Next year I intend to increase my correct picks by 58%. I recommend that you learn to see your basket three-quarters full instead of one-quarter empty. Scoring is all done by computer, so there can be no mistake and there is no possibility that any member of the Pride Pool scoring committee has tampered with the results. I can say this with honesty because I have tried several times to artificially manipulate the results with no success whatsoever. Congratulations on your impending top-15 finish. Some people would kill for your bracket. Others found comfort in the idea that their near-total ineptitude might be obscured by more prominent finishers. Brother Bruce Lagman, a past Pride Pool champion (circa 1983, I think) offered this attempt at insight: I am happy to report there is absolutely no way Cheryl Hoch can catch me for second to last place. Wheww. People will always remember first place and last place, but finishing second to last is no different than finishing second place. It is a very good day. Whatever. For the record, the difference between second-to-last place and second place is thirty-eight positions and 155 points. It is the difference between 35 correct picks and 49 correct picks. You were beaten by every participant who shares your genetic material, including a grandmother born in 1939, a middle-aged guy with a sore knee, three children who are not old enough to legally operate motor vehicles and another who drives but cannot yet vote. The difference between second and second-to-last is the difference between Kindercare Learning Center and Harvard Law School. But don’t worry, Bro, your secret is safe with me and my readers. And their friends. And a couple million Google search engine users who might enter the search terms Steve’s Brother Gets His Asskicked. (Did you mean Steve’s Brother Gets His Ass Kicked? Why, yes, that’s exactly what I meant.) Last place Cheryl deserves special mention, not because she unknowingly protected my brother’s frail ego from a fate worse than next to last, but for the sacrifices she made for her man. Her man happens to be Eric Evans, which makes it the first time in pool history that husband and wife have claimed both first and last places. Cheryl, according to an unnamed source, allowed Eric to study her carefully-researched bracket in the days before the first round. Once she was sure Eric had submitted his picks, she changed her own entry to include most of the sure losers, leaving just UNLV over Wisconsin to cover her tracks. It was a poignant display of devotion, all to preserve the integrity of the family’s alpha, as Eric was overheard calling himself in a recent interview. I have crafted final commentary on the UW season, which was submitted as a Below the Rim column for the final booster newsletter of the year. In a special offering exclusive to NBI readers, the article will be available on the web site prior to print publication. Lastly, I offer you a warm welcome to baseball season. Each year I look fondly on the promising fortunes of a favorite summer pastime. The Brewers are picked by some to win NL Central. More importantly the umpire’s bellow of Play ball! is the signal to amateur small scale (A.S.S.) farmers (commonly known as gardeners) that the time has come to sow the seeds of cool-weather food crops: carrots, spinach, onions, radishes and peas. It means that rhubarb and asparagus will soon emerge from subterranean dormancy. Lastly, the nascency of a new baseball season prompts the germination of tomatoes under artificial light in climate controlled quarters, to insure transplantation readiness eight weeks from now. It is the late-July gathering of tomatoes that typically marks the collapse of optimism for the Milwaukee Brewers in any give year. O.K., that’s not really true. In most seasons the futility is apparent by the time the first lettuce is picked in May. Perhaps in this uncommonly hopeful year, optimism, or at least mathematical viability, will survive all the way to pumpkin harvest. ______________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column whose publication is wholly supported by voluntary literary and financial contributions of the author. This issue is dedicated to Bruce Lagman for his naive, not to mention entirely false, belief that he could hide behind Cheryl’s withering coattails, and for the creativity of his many impending retaliatory e-mails, which will surely contain gardenist epithets worthy of publication and rebuttal in future columns. A.S.S. is a registered acronym of the Amateur Small Scale Farmers Association of America. © 2007 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.