At first glance, I figured Digger’s facial expression in this picture was the result of two things: lack of Preparation H and Metamucil.
Shockingly, it was neither.
This photo highlights the exact moment Mr. Tie-lighter blurted out a line that will forever haunt his career. He said it last Thursday before the NCAA tourney fired up.
“Greg Paulus will come in and hit some (cranky anus face) BIG SHOTS when it counts in the second half,” Digger said of the ninth-year Duke guard.
Now that Duke is eliminated, let’s recap some of those “big shots.”
Binghamton — Paulus scored five points on a SUNY school that has been Division I for seven years.
- His first bucket — a jumper — came with 12:00 left in the second half, putting the Blue Bloods on top by 20 points, 64-42.
- His second bucket came from behind the arc, giving Dook a 30-point lead, 83-53, with 3:35 left in regulation.
If these are “big shots,” then uppercutting a corpse has to be deemed a “knockout punch.”
Texas — Paulus played a total of two minutes, failing to notch a single statistic.
It was like Coach K. whistled for an adult swim before the game started. Then he looked over at an anxious Gregy and decided to let him at least dip his foot in the water.
Ridgefield’s David McClure — otherwise known as the non-fiction version of John Hartwell from “Finding Forrester” — even logged six minutes.
Villanova — Paulus had quite the swan song effort, registering one more foul (4) than points (3).
- Greg’s final basket in a white collar uniform came with 15:45 left in regulation. He knocked down a 3-pointer off an assist from closet meth addict Greg Scheyer, cutting Nova’s lead to 38-29.
If Duke had stormed back behind their formerly proud leader, it would have been classified as a “big shot.”
Instead, Nova went on an 11-4 run and stretched their lead to 16 points. The surge — which lasted a little over four minutes — was aided by two Paulus turnovers and a personal foul.
At the tail end of the game, Paulus was subbed out. As he walked off the court, there was a noticeable emotional hum crooning from my TV set. It was apparent that the collective Duke fan base had transplanted the hearts of a million soccer moms into their chests. Teammates stood up and clapped, engulfing Paulus as he walked off.
The senior point guard, who had played 39 minutes in a win over Indiana a mere seven games into his freshman year, returned to the bench after playing a combined 41 minutes in the last seven games of his career.
Duke freshman Olek Czyz walked to the scorers table to check into the game, which was something he’d only done thrice since Jan. 4.
As Czyz approached the floor, he must have prayed to every deity west of Warsaw that Digger and Dick couldn’t pronounce his name.
