West Coast basketball hits Hollywood (sorta)

The west coast is where people go to become famous. The shimmering lights of Hollywood inspire people to do crazy things.

West coast basketball is about as down as it's ever been. Consider this: the marquee match-up of the year on the west coast features a mormon school in Utah and a school whose claim to fame is being the alma mater of Marshall Faulk.

So it makes sense that players are going out of their way to get some "face-time".

UC-Santa Barbara senior Justin Joyner may be one of these people.

You see, Joyner may never be recognized for his basketball abillities ever again. But I can guarantee you that somebody will approach him and ask him to "do the Old Spice Guy imitation".



Joyner is a Communications Studies major, which probably has something to do with reason for making this video. I've seen many-an-Old-Spice-spoof before and this is definitely one of the best. Clearly the budget handcuffed the video's creativity. After all, you'd need to be related to George Lucas to pull off something like this.

I'm not sure how long Joyner's spotlight will shine for, but at least it's shinning, which can't be said about every budding thespian.

But Joyner isn't the only west coast basketball player with acting talents. In fact, Joyner's video is the third spoof we've seen this season. The Long Beach State team got the creative juices flowing with this hilarious spoof titled "No Sick Days":





For a month or so, the 49ers were the college hoops kings of youtube. But it wasn't long before other teams caught on. Loyola Marymount was next on the scene, as they spoofed one of the greatest commercials of all times:



If we have to endure another sub-par season of west coast basketball in order to see more hilarious spoofs acted out by college basketball players, I'm fine with that.

Because if the NCAA has taught us anything, it's that there are over 360,000 NCAA D-I student athletes, and about all of them are going to go pro in something other than sports.
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Which buzzer beater was crazier?

Generally speaking, when I think of a New Year's Eve buzzer beater, I think of someone scrambling through the party while the ball is dropping in order to find their New Year's Eve kiss partner.

For UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Northridge, getting lucky on New Year's Eve was the result of getting a very different kind of ball to drop.

The Gauchos were down by two to Fresno Pacific, an NAIA school, on the final possession of the game when Jordan Weiner followed up an airball from Orlando Johnson to tie the game at the buzzer:



Not to be outdone, Northridge's Devon Peltier hit a three from the corner with 0.4 seconds left that bounced off the top of the back board before falling through:



My vote is for UCSB's. Why? Because the headline "UC Santa Barbara's Weiner gets lucky on New Year's Eve" could legitimately have been written.
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