Preview: University of Texas Rio Grande Valley v Creighton

GAME INFO:

Location: Omaha, NE

Game time: 7pm CT

Weather at tip-off: 32° fahrenheit, 5mph winds from the north northwest, mostly cloudy skies.

Radio: Radio: 1620am / 101.9fm / 1620 the Zone App feat the voice of Xmus Jaxon Flaxon-Waxon Bishop

TV: FS1 or the Fox Sports App

OPPONENT INFO:

The University of Texas Pan-Am and the University of Texas Brownsville disappeared into the void in late 2012, leaving a confusing step for late-teens children, forcing them to wander aimlessly, uncertain if they could attain a massive debt that would follow them for the rest of their lives while operating under the guise that they were “learning something” for 4-5-6-7 years.

Luckily, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley suddenly appeared, absorbing both UT Pan-Am and UT Brownsville. Without it, those aimless children would’ve been left to figure out how to work for a living on their own without wasting a bunch of time and money.

Thank the sweet lord that UTRGV was formed, now with LAW SCHOOL edition! Without it, how else would these late teen children have navigated their early twenties? What, with multiple jobs?

UTRGV absorbed UT Pan-Am’s entire sport programs, including men’s basketball and their coaching staff in place. Dan Hipsher was able to transition seamlessly from Edinburg, Texas to Edinburg, Texas, bringing along with him his mediocre basketball program. The program was technically founded in 1952-53 in the field of NAIA competition. They won a natty in 1962-63, got split membership with D-II, and eventually joined D-I in 1968.

In 1980-81, Pan-Am upset Isaiah Thomas’s Indiana squad and Doc Rivers’s Marquette squad in the Maui Invitational. They made it to the NIT - the only D1 postseason experience they’d ever had until making it to the CBI in 2017-18 & CIT the following year - and lost to fucking Tulsa.

The aforementioned Dan Hipsher got fired after UTRGV’s inaugural year. The Vaqueros finished 8-22, finishing the season with 9 losses in their final 11 games. Lew Hill took over in 2016 after serving on Lon Kruger’s staff, which means he’s been on the opposite end of one of the greatest Bluejay comebacks of all time.

Hill had similar success to Hipsher in his first year, losing ten consecutive games to close out his first season with a record of 10-22. He’s righted the ship since then, finishing 15-18 in 2018 and 20-17 in 2019.

UTRGV is 4-5 so far on the season, with losses to South Dakota State, North Dakota State, Stony Brook, and somehow, UT Corpus Christi... twice.

Their wins are against a singular man named Howard Payne (masochist), Texas A&M International (clearly a made-up school), Sam Houston State (real), and Mid-America Christian (total fucking fraud).

The Vaqueros rank 313th in offensive efficiency, 166th in defensive efficiency, and 329th in eFG%, even with all those bullshit schools tossed into the mix.

This is the classic finals hangover game that McDermott schedules every season. It’s a yawner, a true cupcake, a game that’ll be inexplicably close for a while before the team turns it on halfway through the second half.

Verba de Ludorum

There’s a great deal of enjoyment that one can derive out of Christmas shopping, if you do it right.

Sure, there’s the anxiety of getting the right thing, fighting through the crowds, and hoping your bank account doesn’t bottom out, but you can have fun with it.

Here are a few fun ways to have fun while shopping IRL:

• Everything that has a button, press the button
• Gawk at things on a shelf for a long time
• Smell candles and loudly proclaim how terrible it is, making passers-by curious and wanting to take a whiff themselves
• Offer advice to overwhelmed parents trying to coddle their crying child
• Steal
• Rob the Salvation Army bell ringer
• Talk loudly about buying or selling drugs to an imaginary (or real) person on your phone
• Drop fragile shit and run

If that doesn’t quite trip your trigger, try staying at home and drinking alone instead. When it comes time to meet family for a gift exchange, don’t, turn off your phone, and keep drinking alone. It’s by far the easiest way to get through the holidays. When they’re over, send a bunch of texts to loved ones about how you were “immersed in a work project” and then continue on with life like nothing happened.

When there are aberrations to one’s schedule and pressure to do things with people, don’t take it as a challenge and stress about it. Just pretend it doesn’t exist. With that being said, also do all of the things and stress about it so you can join the exact same conscious plane as the rest of us.

If you’re looking to do some good in this world, but don’t know how, and also have billions of dollars, you can simply give me a billion or two. I will find excellent ways to put it to use. I’ll give it to children. I’ll build cool stuff in the city. Heck, I’ll even get into the real estate business and reverse-gentrify areas that are currently getting gentrified. That’ll show those rich assholes who’s boss. Me. I’m the boss. I’m the fucking boss. Give me a billion dollars so I can be the boss. You won’t regret it.

Song of the Day - Jealous Guy by Donny Hathaway