With a 68-45 drubbing of the Missouri State Bears last Saturday, the Wichita State Shockers capped off an undefeated regular season, the first since the Jameer Nelson-led St. Joe’s Hawks went 27-0 in 2004. The Shockers have lived up to their name, rising to #2 in the AP poll and sending waves throughout the country. This team is carefully constructed, with Gregg Marshall as its puzzle master, and it just might have the formula to be able to take the Missouri Valley Conference to the top of the mountain for one shining moment.
Author Archives: Rory Masterson
3-Pointer: February 28, 2014
Jason Collins officially became the first openly gay professional athlete to play in one of the four major North American sports this week, and the immeasurable positivity surrounding his situation has rendered any predicted backlash moot. Elsewhere, LeBron becomes Bane, as if he wasn’t that already, and Boogie Cousins returns to his scheming, maniacal ways.
3-Pointer: February 21, 2014
In a strange twist of events, the All-Star Game was the actual best part of this year’s All-Star Weekend. Kyrie Irving lit up the Crescent City, scoring 31 points and adding 14 assists in a record-breaking game during which both teams cleared 150 points. Saturday night’s festivities, long the most exciting of the break, failed to deliver. Elsewhere, the trade deadline passes, coming in like a motorcycle and going out like a tricycle. Also, the KD-LeBron dichotomy is heating (thundering?) up, though both just seem to want to play their own brands of basketball.
3-Pointer: February 14, 2014
LeBron James made Mount Rushmore a trending topic earlier this week for reasons entirely unrelated to the giant presidential faces carved into the side of a granite slab in South Dakota. From coast to coast, people got all up in arms about who the four best basketball players of all-time are, if that is the criteria necessary to earn a spot there. Elsewhere, Carmelo Anthony wants to win a championship (don’t we all?), and Pierre the Pelican finally gets a makeover, just in time for All-Star Weekend in his hometown.
3-Pointer: February 8, 2014
The halcyon days of Blake Griffin as “the world’s best dunk artist who just happens to play professional basketball” are over in Los Angeles. Without Chris Paul, Lob City has managed to go 12-6 without their leader and guide, Chris Paul, and Griffin’s magisterial performance in a losing effort against the Heat on February 5 was one of the most exciting and thought-provoking games of the season. Elsewhere, Dan Gilbert is doing his best not to foster a Steinbrenner-Martin relationship with Mike Brown, and the Lakers played out an near-video game scenario against those very same Cavaliers. Also, the Brow is an All-Star for the very first time, and Damian Lillard can destroy anything with a basketball in his hand.
On Death, Vulnerability And Its Limits
On Sunday morning, or really Sunday afternoon, I awoke in a haze, courtesy of a red wine-fueled excursion to Chinatown. The night had turned to morning, and following an ill-begotten stop at White Castle, it had deposited me back in my Bronx apartment sometime after 4:30 a.m. I knew I would wake up hating my decision-making, or lack thereof, and sure enough, the most depressing moment of my recent existence came when I had to stare at myself in the mirror the following afternoon, barely able to keep my head up long enough without my illness manifesting itself in a particularly vile and violent fashion.
3-Pointer: January 31, 2014
Royce White remains enigmatic, and Houston GM Daryl Morey seems to believe that laying claim to the “worst first-round pick ever” is a point of pride. The YMCA league all-star continues to frustrate and perplex fans and the media, even two years after his last competitive basketball game. Elsewhere, Carmelo Anthony scores 62 at Madison Square Garden, showing that he’s probably tired of losing, and the basketball-viewing public should take time to appreciate the excellent generation of players we are able to see on a nightly basis right now. It may never happen quite like this again.
The 11 Best Quotes From Noel Gallagher’s Oasis DVD Music Video Commentary
At the risk of sounding like a BuzzFeed article, here is a video from the internet, and I’m going to give you a list of things related to it which, I hope, will make you want to watch the video so that you can nod along with me.
Of all the byproducts of mid-90s Anglophilia, including the Spice Girls, Trainspotting and the worldwide coverage of Princess Diana’s death, perhaps the most notoriously raucous entity to emerge was the rock band Oasis. You remember, they of “Wonderwall,” the anthem of every college freshmen stairwell guitar player and 90s-themed parties? The Gallagher brothers fought relentlessly, against Blur, against the media and, most notably, against each other, eventually culminating in a breakup just prior to a 2009 concert in Paris.
3-Pointer: January 22, 2014
Polar Vortex II has struck the Eastern Seaboard, but that is not stopping Kevin Durant from igniting the NBA with an insane scoring run. As of this moment in time, @KDTrey5 is the most unstoppable basketball player on this planet, and his herculean shooting in carrying the Thunder is making a certain injured teammate of his very excited. Elsewhere, Carmelo Anthony is almost certainly checking out how many frequent flyer miles he has accumulated so that he can book the fastest ticket out of New York, and Pierre the Pelican (AKA “Death, Destroyer of Worlds”) is reportedly getting a face lift in time for the All-Star Break.
America Gets Sherminated
Last night, in the second game of a conference championship weekend for the ages, the Seattle Seahawks defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 23-17, to send themselves to the Super Bowl for the second time in franchise history and, for what it’s worth, the second time in the last decade. Seattle has been an undeniably fun team to watch in the last two years, and particularly this season. The Seahawks have lost at home only once in the Russell HUSTLE BUSTLE Wilson era, in a Week 16 matchup earlier this season to a surprisingly good Arizona Cardinals team, and some fans have even taken to adopting a Phish song as Wilson’s personal entrance music. It is only right that a fun team from the Pacific Northwest, from the city without an NBA franchise, should represent the NFC in the Super Bowl.
Then, Richard Sherman happened.



