Two UCLA players probably won't watch 'Entourage' ever again

Entourage, the HBO comedy-turned-drama centered around the life of Hollywood superstar Vincent Chase and his childhood crew, may as well be a chronicle of the life every 18-35 year old male dreams of living.

Beautiful women. Endless parties. Limitless spending money.

What else can you ask for?

One of the characters in this show is known simply as Turtle. If you watch the show (which, if you read this blog, I'm fairly certain you do), than you know that Turtle fills the role of the lovable loser/wisecracking pothead. Every time he comes up with a new business or a way to make himself some money, something unforeseen happens and it all goes down the drain. Turtle has failed as a hip-hop manager, a car service owner, and temporarily as a tequila enterprise developer, before some financial help from Mark Cuban.

You should also know that there are some strong ties between UCLA and the show. Turtle attends business classes at the school, and former Bruins Jordan Farmar and Kevin Love have made cameos.

Knowing that, if next season the show had a plot line where Turtle opened up a deli named "Fat Sal's" and tried to attract the UCLA basketball team to patron the joint to increase its notoriety but gave the players food poisoning which gave the deli the wrong kind of publicity and forced him to close, would you be surprised? (Phew, that was a long hypothetical.)

The ironic part?

This isn't that far from reality.

On Saturday night, after UCLA knocked off Cal Poly 72-61, a number of Bruins -- including freshmen Tyler Lamb and Anthony Stover -- headed to Fat Sal's, a deli owned, in part, by Jerry Ferrara, the actor that plays Turtle. You can probably guess what happened next:

UCLA guard Tyler Lamb said he was still having some trouble keeping food down Wednesday, four days after he ate chicken chili cheese fries that led to gastrointestinal distress for him and fellow freshman Anthony Stover. ...
Lamb said he woke up Sunday morning feeling weak, and he needed intravenous fluids to regain his strength.

That's right.

Lamb and Stover got food poisoning from a deli that counts the guy that plays Turtle as an owner. Now, if only E was trying to convince the players not go to the papers with where they got sick, Drama was hitting on UCLA freshmen half his age, and Vince was swooping in to save the day, making the deli the newest hot spot in town by eating the chicken chili cheese fries in plain sight, the Entourage writers might have themselves an episode.

This isn't the first time that an actor has made the rounds on the college basketball blogs this year. Remember Ashton Kutcher's recruiting violation?

Here's the thing. Ferrara is a moderately successful actor. His role as Turtle luanched him into celebrity status. (he dated co-star Jamie-Lynn Sigler for over a year). He also has co-hosted a sports talk show on Fox Sports Radio in Los Angeles and just recently was signed to host his own fantasy football show on Sirius sattelite radio. So it's safe to assume that Ferrara knows a thing or two about acting, talking and sports.

But what does he know about owning a business in the food industry? This seems far too reminiscent of the tequila fiasco from season seven.

In fact, it looks like Lamb and Stover got a case of Montezuma's revenge.