On Thursday night we finished the first week of our season by beating James Madison by 28 points. I personally thought that James should have brought at least four other teammates along with him, but he must have been confident that he could take our entire team on by himself. Seems like a lot to ask of a guy that’s been dead for over 150 years, but then again if he can father something as magnificent as the Constitution, I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t be able to hold his own against us. As it stands, I can just about guarantee that Madison now wishes that he focused his Federalist Paper No. 10 on how to contain The Villain in pick-and-roll situations instead of how to contain political factions, but that’s sort of stating the obvious.
As for what happened on the court, most people who watched would agree that the first 38:53 had its moments, but the action really didn’t pick up until the final 1:07 of the game. Strangely enough that happened to be right around the time that I checked into the game (note: it was the exact time I checked into the game) and recorded what was probably the first perfect game of the season in all of college basketball. For those who don’t remember, a perfect game consists of not only registering a trillion (if you don’t know what a trillion is, you have a lot of catching up to do), but doing it without even touching the ball. This perfect game is especially important to me because it marked the first trillion I have recorded in a game since I started writing this blog (I also had a perfect game in our exhibition against Walsh, but it didn’t count because it wasn’t a real game). There has been a lot of pressure on me to practice what I preach and for the most part I had been failing to live up to said pressure, which is why it feels good to finally get that trillion pound monkey off my back.
Our victory against James Madison came three days after we beat Alcorn State 100-60 and The Villain recorded the second triple-double in Ohio State history (the only previous one occurred sometime in the 80’s). Despite our differences through the years, I will admit that I was slightly impressed with The Villain’s performance and I’m anticipating great things from him all year. But don’t expect me to kiss his feet just yet. Sure he got a triple-double, but as I already said, so has someone else in Ohio State history. If he really wants to stand out and gain my respect, he needs to stop getting triple-doubles and start getting some double-triples. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
I checked into the Alcorn State game with more than 2:30 to play, which was the most I have played at Ohio State since the very first game of my career. To put it into perspective, I played more in the Alcorn State game than I did in all of last year’s games combined, so it goes without saying that I was borderline exhausted at the end of the game. Still, I saw a perfect opportunity to record a three trillion (which was unprecedented for me) and knew that I had to put the pain from my burning lungs out of my mind if I were to see it through. After playing for about two minutes, the trillion was still intact, but with around 40 seconds remaining, an Alcorn State shot caromed off the rim and came directly at me. None of my teammates were anywhere close to me, which meant that I had no choice but to grab the ball. Since I absolutely had to get the rebound, I thought I’d execute one of those emphatic-smacking-of-the-ball rebounds that all the cool kids do. I don’t want to get too cocky but based on what I remember, the ball-slap rebound (some great jokes could be made with that term) was performed pretty perfectly, to the point that even the three fans in the upper deck could hear it. I would never condone losing a trillion, but if it absolutely must happen, I think it’s pretty clear that a ball-slap rebound is the best possible consolation prize.
Altogether, it was a pretty successful week for both Club Trillion and the Ohio State Buckeyes. We are 2-0, The Villain put up a triple-double, and I was dangerously close to pulling off back-to-back trillions. More importantly, the mustache I’m growing out for Movember made two appearances on high definition television. It might be too soon to tell, but it seems like this could be a pretty successful senior year for me. We play North Carolina and either Syracuse or Cal next week in Madison Square Garden, which means I basically get an off week to gear up for the remainder of our nonconference schedule, yet still get the opportunity to pull off some serious warm-up board slaps in the Mecca of basketball. It might be cliché to say that I’m “living the dream”, but until someone comes up with a better way to explain what it’s like to get a perfect game, make it rain during warm-ups in basketball’s most famous arena, and consistently win verbal altercations with The Villain, I’m going to continue to describe my experiences in such a manner. Scratch that. On second thought, I’m really not living the dream at all. Not even close, actually. I’m more accurately living the opposite of “the dream”. No dream of mine would ever have The Villain play a predominant role in it.
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Streak for the Cash Group Leader: T. Rittenhouse (streak of 15 wins)
Streak for the Cash Group Loser: J. Beer who has the best last name (even though it’s absolutely fake) in the history of Streak(streak of 9)
Your awesome YouTube, which happens to be one of my favorite commercials from back in the day, was sent in to me by Ed B. There’s your shout-out, Ed. And here's your video.
Your Friend and My Favorite,
Mark Titus
Club Trillion Founder