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Owls Surprise Southern Poly University
If you’d of gone to the basketball game Tuesday night, you would have seen a massive team facing up against the Fighting Owls in the Hooterdome.
If you’d of read the website of Southern Poly University of Marietta, Georgia, you would have seen a long brag list:
Undefeated,
Ranked 20th in the nation,
3rd place in South State Athletic Conference,
4rth in nation in steals per game,
5 guys in the 3.0 GPA Club,
9th in world of turnover margin,
3 guys over 6’7” on the team.
When the game started, they had nine extra men on the bench. Coach Allen could get a love seat for the Owls, as there were only two extra men on the Owl’s side. And to top it off, the stinging Hornets came off in a full court press.
But if you watched the sub bench, you’d realize that maybe it was all for show, cause two minutes into the game, somebody had to come off (they were up by 8 points). And a minute later, another hornet fell -- Luke Bruin smelled the fear and put in his first 3 pointer.
This angered the bees – they wanted to play without competition—to face a scared kid jumping up and down while they repeatedly stung. The nine on the enemy bench began a strange clapping stomping cheering high kicking thing.
SIX MINUTES INTO THE GAME, four new guys went in! Wholesale substitutes. Antonio Ton Ton Wilburn says ‘bring it’ and got the first free shot. A trumpet blew ‘charge’ from the Owl crowd. The Hornet in a suit rearranged his bench so that his subs could peel off in the correct order.
Soccer wonder Stefan Janjic swooped down in a silent attack, turning his head 360 degrees for the fans. All of a sudden, the score was 12 for the Owls, 13 for the Hornets, and the Hornets’ travels down the court ended up scoreless time and time again with the medium galloots—the big galloots all resting after their three minutes of play—not able to claim the house.
The cheer-boys on the bad guy bench stopped cheerin, and their boys on the court begin serious confabs during the time outs. With five minutes left in the first half and the Owls holding their own, the Poly coach sent in his big galloots again. But the big boys were shaken from their previous sprints – they were reachers, not sprinters.
The Nelson twins from capital city in Texas weren’t letting Poly’s passes through, Josh Neri stayed cool on the carries, Macedonia’s Aleks Spasovski was spreading his wing span so that no one could get by. The big and tall Hornets, who looked so cool and collected in the first 180 seconds of the game, weren’t quite as put together. One even got hit in the head from an intended pass. The score was 25 good guys and 46 Hornets as the men left the court.
Turns out most of those stats about steals and turnovers was last year--and the Hornets have only played three games this year-at their home court. They had not come to the Hooter Dome. They had not seen Luke – whose been compared to Clyde the Glide Drexler – 20 points last game, draining the 3 pointers, hovering over the paint, with the wing span of an albatross. The Runnin’ Hornets hadn’t seen Luke the Glide nor even heard of the Owls before they stepped onto the nice slick boards of Hooterdome, shined up so that the 3.0GPA Club boys spent more time admiring their reflections than focusing on their game – with all the national title stealing and turnovers and such.
The crowd knew their first points were lucky – the tall guys reaching over the Owls—not jumping really, just reaching—nothing fancy, tall that’s all--and cheer leaders for heaven’s sake—the men in baggy shorts (the shorter ones in Capri’s) doing a routine on the bench.
At half time, women’s basketball goddess/stomp dancer Kapono brought in her women, who plan to be so at every home game –a 13 member stomp and step group that would impress even the hoodiest homies from Oteen. Hooterdome hasn’t seen cheerleaders since 1990 when the blue and gold uniforms were burned to be sure there would never again be girls in short skirts and pom poms whose goal is to look cute and root for the boys. They’ve been replaced this year with the impressive women in black.
As the women stomped new energy into the crowd, maybe Coach Billy reminded the predators in the dressing room to focus on the rock, to ignore the elbows in the faces, to take the rock to the hole all night, to claim their house and take the hornets coast to coast-- go into the old Dean Smith’s 4 corner offense if necessary. You really don’t know what goes on in those revival meetings, I can only imagine there’s lots of Dicky V kind of talk. But as the second half warm-up started, it was the Owls who were still inspired and sprinting, as the Hornets buzzed slowly around the nest in a trance wonderin why they couldn’t do better?
The second half whistle blew, an Owl was stung on the bicep, his shot blocked, a teammate applied some homeopathic bee sting remedy as the offending Hornet took the ball and scored. But that was the last time it would be so easy. Inspired by the mid game revival meeting, the Nelsons, Neri, Aleks and Luke were calm as cucumbers as they dealt with the onslaught of new faces and shoves and dance moves.
Twenty minutes into the half, the big galloots (the starters) had missed four attempts in a row –—thirty-five feet of hornets if you laid them end-to-end, and they couldn’t score on our boys. One of the bees even missed a free throw – nobody was moving, nobody was pressuring him, the ball was exactly the same distance from the net as it has been since the guy was only 6’4” in third grade, and he missed – this compared to a successful 10 out of 13 Owl free throws in the first half.
The head Hornet was not happy, even though his team was ahead, he wanted to be more ahead—he wanted more records – but the defense of the Owls made them get knocked in the back of the head by the ball instead of putting their lovely passes together; three guys got called for traveling in a two minute period; the players and the coach were trying to parlay with the refs – while the Owls respectfully, attentively, and humbly played their game.
The second half went on with the Hornets slowing and the Owls speeding up – the fitness and finesse of the good guys never waned. Ending score was 79 bad guys/ 49 Owls. Our fans were proud of the play, the Poly boys went to wrap themselves in ice and cotton.
Our men are a fine bunch—they call their moms every mom’s day – you should come see them play.
They are in Montreat’s house on the 20th at 7:30.
The next home game is: Next Nov 29th at 7:00 against North Greenville Tigers.