Wrapping up the Season
By Tee Kane
April 11, 2008
Last week I was recklessly attacked by Gee Kane in a column that was supposed to draw attention to my inaccurate predictions. Some of our readers may have been surprised by Gee’s mean-spirited tone, while most of our readers have personally met Gee and therefore automatically discounted his opinions. Still others have seen Gee at the Verizon Center after a few pints and realize that he’s more belligerent than Chris Matthews on PCP.
I would never be vindictive toward my own brother, but sometimes sweet revenge comes dripping like a melting icicle; other times (and how I love those other times) it comes rushing like a mighty stream. I ended the season with a flourish by correctly predicting the three final games and having Kansas, my pre-tournament favorite, cut down the nets.
The Jayhawk Express proved in San Antonio why they were the most complete team in the nation. The final few minutes of regulation and overtime played out like a microcosm of the Jayhawks’ season. With the ball in their hands, the Jayhawks made free-throws, three-pointers, and lay-ups; on the defensive end, the Jayhawks got some huge steals and enough defensive stops to win the title.
Given the talent on the court and the dramatic ending, it gets my vote for the best game of the entire tournament – a really satisfying piece of television. We might have to rename the Ganseybitches Big Shot of the Week Award after Mario Chalmers for nailing such a difficult shot on the biggest stage possible.
I don’t want to brag too much about getting the final three games right since I’m aware the nature of predictions can be illusionary. We invariably give ourselves too much adulation when we correctly predict (stumble upon) the outcome of an event. The sheer number of people guessing means that some people will end up guessing the right outcome. If you have enough people guessing on any subject, whether it’s sports or the stock market, eventually someone is going to get a few right guesses in a row (see Jim Kraemer or Lenny Dystra).
But I’m going to forget all that for the moment, declare myself a genius, and return to Gee’s column to review some of the things written that are allegedly evidence of my idiocy. One of the truly brilliant blogs, Fire Joe Morgan (the name comes from Joe Morgan’s incessant hatred of Moneyball and is written in part by one of the producers and writers of the Office,) does a tremendous job of running through the columns of sports writers for major national papers and tearing them to shreds for their unsubstantiated opinions. They usually post the original column with their own sarcastic commentary underneath every couple of lines of the offending column. So in honor of Fire Joe Morgan, I’d like to go through Gee’s column and offer my own take.
Gee: I have had enough. And I know you Tee’s Weekly faithful readers have too. Tee’s Weekly Founder Tee has gone unchecked for too long. His inexplicably high placement of Duke in Tee’s Top 10 all year was bad enough, but when he picked Washington State to beat North Carolina last week I thought to my self, I must have the dumbest boss in the country.
Not once did I have Duke ranked higher than their AP or coaches’ poll ranking. Gee has been saying I was in the tank for Duke for several years now after I made the outrageous comment that I thought Jay Williams was a good player. It’s possible I’m the dumbest boss in the country, but then again only one of us has been a substitute teacher in the Wicomico County public schools.
Therefore, I must step up like Jeffrey Wigand and Paul Van Buitenen before me and be the whistleblower that lets the people know that Tee, founder of Tee’s weekly, is off his freaking rocker. If only someone would do the same for the Yankees, they could save themselves from missing the playoffs for the next five years.
Gee should have done the right thing and actually credited Wikipedia here on Paul Van Buitenen. I’m not sure what our sourcing policy is, but I can smell Wikipedia coming off that last statement. In the words of Dr. Enakmas – come on, you’re better than that.
Gee: Tee has a bad case of west coast bias for a kid who’s never stepped foot anywhere west of Tiger Stadium. Last week he wrote that Washington State “should be able to frustrate the Heels offensively.” Well if the Tar Heels were frustrated, it was only because they were hoping to blow out the Cougars by more than the 21 points that they did. If Washington State played North Carolina 100 times, the Cougars would win every time the Tar Heels didn’t get off the bus. And they would lose by double digits every other time.
I’ve actually been as far west as Milwaukee, but I guess that’s a small point. As for my prediction about Washington State frustrating the Tar Heels offensively, it turns out that I was dead on with that one. The Cougars, despite getting blown out, held the Tar Heels to one of their worst offensive efforts (adjust for the pace of play) of the season.
Gee: Tee’s list of endless BS is long and includes a top-10 ranking for Drake, Vanderbilt, and Indiana this year--three teams that won a combined zero games in the tournament. Tee wrote at one point this year, “Don't be surprised if St. Louis eventually knocks off one of the ranked teams in the A-10. You can't keep a man like Majerus down for long.”
This statement, unlike many of Tee’s statements, might have actually come true if only St. Louis had a ranked opponent left on its schedule. You might wonder why I would even continue to write for Tee’s when Tee is such a fountain of misinformation. Well, it’s the same reason I tell my wife that I have accepted invitations to play at a couple of top golf courses in the U.S. that just happen to not allow women on the grounds: I really want to change things and it is easier to do it from the inside.
The first statement is so absurdly arbitrary it’s almost not worth responding. Vanderbilt last made an appearance in the Top 10 on January 9. But at least the first statement holds some sort of truth. The second statement is so wrong Dick Cheney wouldn’t even include it in an intelligence estimate. Not only did St. Louis play a Top 10 team, they actually proved my prediction 100 percent correct a week later when they beat No. 21 ranked Rhode Island.
Also, Gee has no intention of fixing things from the inside. If he did you would actually receive shipments from a certain three-letter German shipping company.
The rest of the article goes on to announce our new hiring at Tee’s Weekly, which I completely support. I’ve meet Trevor K and you wouldn’t want to compete against him in a game of blackjack, a math problem with algorithms, or reciting sports statistics. He makes Rain Man look like a below-average whole-number counter.
Before I end this column I want to say thank you to everyone who spread the word to friends about Tee’s Weekly. We’ve tried our best every week to produce an entertaining and sometimes thoughtful magazine on college basketball. Of course, most of the feedback I got on a weekly basis started out with, “I didn’t read any of the sports stuff, but…” That same person watched her first ever college basketball game last week, so maybe there’s hope for Tee’s Weekly making it big (or at least approaching mediocrity).
Special thanks to our Director of Technology Timee Kane and our Editor-In-Chief Katherine Graham Kane for the hard work in Brooklyn to get Tee’s Weekly online every Thursday. It’s an incredible effort and they deserve a nice thank you from everyone.
We hope to back online in the sometime near future with a revamped Tee’s Weekly that will have a number of changes, including giving our loyal readers a greater chance to weigh-in on the columns.
-Go raibh maith agat
Tee