The BIAH Quotables: Feast Week

This a new feature we are trying out here at BIAH this season. Throughout the week, we are going to post some notable quotes or excerpts that show up in our google reader. Stupid people say stupid things 24 hours a day, and being somehow associated with the college hoops landscape does not preclude that fact. That said, we will not limit our quotables to the simple and idiotic, as the insightful and intelligent will also be highlighted. Feel free to pass along any quotables you stumble across to contactbiah@gmail.com or @ballinisahabit.

With the number of games taking place during Feast Week, there was no shortage of candid moments or excellent analysis. Here is the best of the best

First up, a solid gold nugget of quotable provided by our very own Rob Dauster, who took some time out of his live blog to ask the tough, in-your-face question that everybody (including myself) has been wondering for a long, long time:

I've never understood why coaches like to bring the chairs from the bench onto the court during timeouts. Seems like a lot of work for something that is not a huge deal. Who has the job of carrying the chairs? is it one person per chair? Or does one guy get all five?

Jon Scheyer was embarrassed by the way he committed his first turnover of the season in Duke's win over Arizona State:

Everybody looked at me when it happened. I just wish it could have happened on a cool pass, not stepping on the line. It's something that just happened but I'm blaming everybody on the team because they started talking about the streak after last game.

Dana O'Neil provides the next quotable. This one, discussing UConn's hectic schedule:

Crummy defense, lousy rebounding, eight days without a game and Jim Calhoun.

There are worse ways to suffer in life.

Like waterboarding. Maybe.

Such was the fate of the Connecticut Huskies. An abnormal break in the early schedule gave Calhoun more than a week to, ahem, emphasize to his team what exactly their deficiencies were.

"It wasn't fun," senior forward Stanley Robinson said. "Not fun at all."

In the same article, "Sticks" discusses what it means to him to play against Duke:

I always wanted to play against Duke when I was a kid. If you couldn't go there, you wanted to play against them. One of the reasons I didn't want to go there was because their gym was so small. Nah, I'm just talking.

Coach Mark Few uses a few too many analogies when detailing how special the Maui Invitational title is to Gonzaga:

Obviously this is the pinnacle, the creme de la creme of all the preseason tournaments. I mean, this is the kingpin and any other analogy you would like to use and so that is why it is so special when you look up and you see all those great teams that have won this thing and then what they have accomplished maybe after they win this thing.

Sent via text message, Cinci coach Mick Cronin expresses his opinion on a crucial missed call that cost his team the Maui Invitational title:

It is very unfortunate that a clear foul was not called. I have great respect for officials, but that was obvious and it is a tough one to swallow for my guys.

Cronin then details the situation:

Yancy told me he got fouled. The guys on ESPN told me he got fouled, but I am too short to see that. If he got fouled it is going to make it a long flight home.

Coach Cal praised the late-game poise his back court displayed in their OT win over Stanford:

I think we've got two guys when the game is on the line they are not afraid to make plays, which bodes well for us. You saw once again that late in the game I'm not calling a timeout. I don't need to be a hero, let those guys be the hero.

In this article chronicling ESPN's takeover of the pre-season tournaments, Luke Winn describes a former tournament coordinator's extreme displeasure with the World Wide Leader's takeover:

The other 21 tournaments, unable to use TV as a lure in booking teams, fight for the scraps. Says Lee Frederick, the president of Milwaukee-based Sport Tours, which ran the San Juan Shootout from 1987 until it died in 2008.
"ESPN is the gorilla that's coming after all of us, trying to eat us all up."

Frederick is bitter -- obscenely bitter -- on the subject of ESPN's push into the tournament market. He still runs two multi-team events, the Glenn Wilkes Classic in Daytona, Fla., and the Las Vegas Holiday Hoops Classic, but neither is on TV.

"F--- ESPN, Print that. F--- ESPN. They think history started with them. Well, they didn't create s---. They just have more money than God."

The thumping that Portland gave UCLA was so bad, even the announcers started to slack off. Here is a transcript of a discussion that took place on-air during the late second half:

Dave O'Brien: Whatever happened to the VCR?
Steve Lavin: It went the way of the 8-track. Cassette tapes, albums.
O'Brien: Albums, oh.
Lavin: Now all you need is the iPhone.

Andy Katz reported on UCLA's embarassing 27-point loss to Portland. He makes a great point about not only how bad UCLA might be, but how good the West Coast Conference could be:

But it also puts the Bruins in a light that makes you wonder not where Portland would finish in the Pac-10, but rather where would this UCLA team finish in the WCC?

Let's remember, this is a league that features Maui Invitational champ Gonzaga, a Saint Mary's team that has barely missed a beat without Patty Mills, a San Diego team that has already beaten Stanford and Oklahoma and a Portland team that has easily dispatched two Pac-10 opponents. Would those same Bruins we saw Thursday night finish any higher than fifth in the WCC? That's something few, if any, would have pondered in the preseason.

Bob Huggins provides us with yet another solid gold quotable. This one, sarcastically explaining his team's play in relation the Devin Ebanks' return:

I think we suck right now with or without Devin.

UNC coach Roy Williams sat down with Andy Katz and delivered this gem about his team's potential and possibly winning his third national championship:

Everybody is as hungry as can be. It's like that great appetizer you eat, but you can't wait till the main course. And then the main course gets there, and, God that was great, but I wonder what's going to be for dessert, and uh, I'm a big dessert guy so I'd like to go for that third course.

ASU point guard Derek Glasser liked playing in MSG but prefers west coast venues:

Our conference tournament is in the Staples Center. I think playing in that arena, and normally we plays games in US Airways where the Suns play. So I guess it is the most famous arena, but, you know, I think the Staples Center is a little nicer than Madison. That's for sure.

Tom Izzo rebuffs statements that getting his 341st victory is more important than a sound team effort:

There's no win one for Izzo. It's win for the team and that's it. This is not like Bobby Knight. Everybody was anticipating it because he was going to break a record. I'm breaking 340 wins. Big deal.