Monday Roundball & the Merits of Naming Your Child “Lou”

After watching the spectacular gold medal game between the U.S. and Canada, one distinct thought stood out in my mind. Forget the fact that I just witnessed the most exciting and most dramatic hockey game I had ever seen. Who cares that I played the under 5.5 goals on a whim and won even though I don’t handicap hockey? This particular thought was about something more. This was about something that transcended space and time… something that most of us Joe’s and Kevin’s could never relate to. This thought, my friends, was about how incredibly awesome it is to name your child something that has a long “o” or long “u” vowel sound. Think about it for a second; if you name your kid Lou, Drew, Bruce, Deuce, Juice, or anything that even remotely rhymes with any of the aforementioned names, the odds that your kid will someday be a fan favorite increase exponentially. And if your last name already has such a melody to it, your whole family tree has been blessed with a winning lottery ticket.

How many times on Sunday afternoon did you hear the hometown Canadian faithful cheering on their goaltender, Roberto Luongo, with echoing chants of “Luuuuooooooo?” Even when he made a routine save, the crowd couldn’t wait to serenade him with the joyous sound of the first syllable in his last name. We’ve all heard it a thousand times before in every single sport. Fans love to boo, but by golly do they sure love to yell out names that rhyme with it even more! Anyway, it’s finally March 1st, so with March Madness fever looming on the horizon (and what should be a well-blogged trip to Vegas for the opening weekend of the tournament by yours truly) I guess I’ll move on to what I do best…

As usual, all plays on sides, totals, and favorites are to win the stated number of units. All plays on dogs are risking the stated number of units.

Unit hierarchy:
1 unit - Schwag.
2 units - Regs.
3 units - Chron.
4 units - What my buddy has in his closet.

YTD Record: 7-4, +5.30 units

Monday, March 1, 2010

Georgia Southern at UNC Greensboro
Under 147.5 (-110, 3 units)
There aren’t many games to choose from on Monday, but this one caught my eye immediately. I have no idea why the odds makers set this total so high. UNC Greensboro has no talent to speak of, and they’ve only scored 70+ points 4 times all season, including just once in their last 13 games. Georgia Southern is defensively challenged and a fairly uptempo team, which is obviously why this total was set fairly high, but it’s not like UNC Greensboro is going to come out guns a blazin’ on Monday night. Even at home the Spartans have a difficult time scoring, so I don’t see any reason to believe that both of these teams are going to put up 70+ points tomorrow. Another factor to consider is that when 2 teams are evenly matched, the home team is generally able to dictate the tempo more than the visiting team. In this match up, UNC Greensboro is by far the slower team, so hopefully they can operate their offense out of a lot of half court sets while not allowing the Eagles to get out in transition.

And don’t forget to name your kid Lou.