Your Fighting Hoyas of Georgetown head to Canada on Saturday to face the hated Syracuse Orange, and as always we here at THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON are bringing you everything you need to know about Georgetown’s next opponent. Here with us to dish on all things Orange is our best blog enemy Hoya Suxa, who you can find being horrible and sucking generally over at Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician, the most horribly named Syracuse site in all of the land. Let’s do this!
Hello! How have things been over the past year or so in your neck of the woods?
I bought a new crock pot and I think that my left leg is longer than my right. So, I'm living my best life.
Let’s say you and I are going out for dinner in Syracuse. Where are we going and what are we ordering?
As a close, personal friend, I would only show you the finest that Syracuse has to offer. After Saturday's game, we'd start with a place perfect for your discerning tastes -- the line of dumpsters behind the Carrier Dome. I'd let you nose through there for a while, letting you really get in there as you continue to suspend your dignity after letting it go for the preceding two hours while rooting for Georgetown. After you've had your fill, we're off for pre-dinner drinks! The location: Any and every public toilet within a mile radius of your Waste Management appetizer, with me routinely attempting to drown your face in the bowl until the gurgles of life steadily decrease from your being with every gulp of stained-bowl swill. Now it's time for the big show: Some of the best barbecue in the country at Dinosaur, enjoyed solo by me as I've pushed you out of the car well before arrival and left you for dead, shivering in a ditch surrounded by the garbage you were forced to eat when this elaborate con was first put into play. All of this is my treat, of course.
This is so batshit crazy that it would never happen but it might and these are the things I think about: What if John Thompson, Jr. convinced his good buddy Jim Boeheim to coach Georgetown next season?
If we're making up our own realities, I'd much prefer Jim Boeheim and Big John starting their own Jewish summer camp in Northern New England. Just these two guys running a sleepaway camp in Maine, putting together an activities calendar that would only interest them:
DAY I: morning wind sprints and learning how to scowl; lunch is more windsprints and everybody singing the official camp song -- "Tim Higgins is a Goddamn Disgrace!"; afternoon activity time is spent showing PJ Carlesimo's worst losses at Seton Hall; dinner is put on hold until lil' Frankie Lutz hits 50 straight free throws; everyone sits around the camp fire at night and sings "Jim Calhoun is a Goddamn Disgrace!"
DAY II: Tuesday is canceled because Boeheim and Thompson couldn't agree on the right shade of blue for the color war.DAY III: The traditional Wednesday activity: "IF YOU WANT TO CALL YOUR GODDAMN PARENTS AND COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW HARD SLEEPAWAY CAMP IS MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRANSFER TO ANOTHER SLEEPAWAY CAMP! YOU WANT TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP AT VILLANOVA?! WE STEAL ALL OF THEIR GODDAMN OARS EVERY YEAR! THEY CAN'T EVEN USE THEIR CANOES! NOBODY IS GOING TO LAUGH AT YOUR BIG SKIT AT DINNER ON FRIDAYIF YOU KEEP REHEARSING LIKE THIS! I HAVE 50 PLAYERS WITH BETTER CANNONBALLS INTO THE LAKE THAN YOU! THIS IS DIVISION I SLEEPAWAY CAMP!"DAY IV: Arts and crafts, because the stuff is already bought and hell if they know what they're going to do with it after this sleepaway camp season.DAY V: Cabin A is covered in ketchup, Isaac Brownstein is complaining about playing time on the Tarzan swing, and Thompson and Boeheim sigh together in the director's cabin. Upon realize they just had a moment, they start laughing. They quickly compose themselves and round everybody up to sing the ol' sleepaway camp traditional, "Providence is a Goddamn Disgrace!"
What does Pearl Washington mean to Syracuse fans?
He's the most important player to ever play at Syracuse and is, with Ewing, the reason the Big East became what it became. Syracuse doesn't become a death laser without Pearl, and there isn't a pole to Ewing without Pearl.
Any thoughts on Justin Trudeau? Is he as charming and handsome as he appears to be? Inquiring minds in the United States are dying to know.
We're all very proud up here of what our hometown boys -- Canada Gulf Coast -- will do to Georgetown when the two teams finally meet. Their nickname is Politely Lay the Ball In Township. They drink poutine Gatorade and wear Nike Dri-Fit Elite long underwear. Their front line is legendary, the back bone of the team (but everyone here calls them the "back bacon" of the team because we all have good senses of humor and can appreciate a pun). The team runs on a tight budget and toboggans to games, but since they're mostly going south it's all downhill. We huddle up to the American border for warmth, and I lost interest in answering this question before I even started.
Are Georgetown and Syracuse even rivals anymore?
[turns on sports radio]"ARE GEORGETOWN AND SYRACUSE EVEN RIVALS ANYMORE?! CHECK OUT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A $5 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO UNO'S! THE PIZZA IS ALMOST AS HOT AS THESE TAKES!"
I think there are generally two conceptual approaches to rivalries: (1) The pro sports model, where fans hate really good teams (like how a Kansas City fan that uses a rope as a belt can't get over the existence of the Patriots) or fans of really good teams all of a sudden start hating other really good teams for no reason other than the fact that they want some vicarious recognition of ability they have no role in creating; and (2) The college sports model, where there are generations of hate that get passed on through lineal anger genes, the genesis of the disdain starting at some point over something probably incredibly stupid but is now revered as "tradition."
The problem the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic always have is that its fans are bent toward the pro sports model, and that has everything to do with pro sports being a bigger deal in those regions than college sports. The hidden secret in the Big East was that, at its foundation and through its growth, Syracuse-Georgetown was a college sports rivalry masquerading as a pro sports thunderdome. Syracuse-Georgetown wasn't built on geography like most college rivalries, but (a) it had a spark (Big John acting as a one-man zoning board and foreclosing Manley) that was perfect for fueling a college sports hate-fest, rattling personal emotion on both sides, (b) it had disparate and engaged alumni bases with enough interaction to push the rivalry forward, (c) the geographic differences between the regional fanbases that weren't degreed by the schools but were passionately tethered to their allegiances allowed for the rivalry to take on a unique college sports geographic construct, and (d) there were constant opportunities each winter and spring to renew the murder. The fact that the series was awesome from a competition standpoint satiated the pro sports styled fans, which only added an additional layer to this whole deal.
Yet, the fact that Syracuse-Georgetown was a competition deathmatch may have eroded the strength of the rivalry a little bit. As the games took center stage, it allowed the pro sports mentality to emerge as a stronger factor, if not the strongest factor. That's why I think you see a lot of Syracuse fans of a certain generation hate Connecticut more than Georgetown, or relatively new Syracuse fans having this totally unexplainable hate for Duke (Duke will never, ever reciprocate with Syracuse the way it wants to stab North Carolina, regardless of how many awesome games Syracuse plays with Duke). With the two teams in different conferences, it has only exacerbated this pro sports mentality.But, these are still fierce rivals -- important college basketball rivals -- to people that are bent toward the college sports model of support. It will be that way for as long as Georgetown and Syracuse continue to meet, which is why it's so important for both schools to continue to schedule these games. Three decades of valuable college basketball history is wrapped within Georgetown-Syracuse, and if anybody lets that go because they think about the rivals of the Knicks and Wizards the same way they think about Syracuse and Georgetown, they should be drowned in acid. It's worth fighting the tide of the pro sports mentality if it means that one of the five most important college basketball rivalries continues with a complete lack of compassion on both sides.
Please respond to this quote about Jimmy B. "ON NORMAL GAME days, his routine is always the same. He holes up in the bedroom, watching old movies or "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." If it's a night game, he has soup, grilled cheese, chips and Pepsi. If it's a day game, he doesn't eat. At some point he gets in the shower, which is the cue for Juli, his wife, to lay out his clothes. If it's a big game, she'll pick something snazzy from the tailor who comes over special from Rochester."
I have no defense for this, other than to assume that it's marginally better than III's pregame prep of crashing trucks in a sandbox until Big John tells him its time to go and that he has to coach a basketball game and, oh god, here come the wails and waterworks from III until Pops says, "Fine! Five more minutes!"
Guy Fieri is the worst person on the planet. I honest to Leo Rautins hate him, even more than you and your eminently punchable mug. He came up with the Gasoline Burger ("Made with real kickin' gasoline, gonna make your motor run right to the hospital because you were dumb enough to think that a guy dressed like your unemployed uncle is qualified to prepare food that you wouldn't even feed to farm animals!"), the Adobe Brick Drenched in Jalapeño Aioli ("It's an adobe brick drenched in jalapeño aioli, a real taste of the Southwest!"), and the Four-Gallon Ice Cream Float Cocktail ("It's a pail of ice cream and Aristocrat vodka with a tricycle wheel garnish!"). Basically, Marquette fans are already salivating over stopping at his feed factory in Times Square during the Big East Tournament.
Football! Congrats on finishing sixth in the Atlantic Division of the ACC with that killer 4-8 record. No question here.
I went to nine games this year. Some highlights: (1) Labatt Blue makes tallboy can with a Zubaz design (Labatt Bluebaz); (2) You are allowed to puke at a table in a bar in Clemson and the only thing that the staff will do is put a towel over your vomit; (3) The midfield logo at UConn looks like fallopian tubes; and (4) Syracuse, unlike Georgetown, throttled Colgate. If I could rub a cheese grater on your face I would.
The Big East has the #1 RPI in the country. The ACC is fourth. Discuss.
You look at the RPI? Do you also receive important information via fax?
Are you even excited about our game on Saturday? I think many Georgetown alums might get brunch instead of watching the game, and then, win or lose, we'll just cry ourselves to sleep. Don't get me wrong. We still hate you, but things just feel...different? Like, you used to be our Joffrey, and we hated you with the fire of a thousand burning suns. Now, you just feel like cilantro in a taco for people who think cilantro tastes like soap. Still annoying as hell to deal with, but it's not like finding an actual turd in your taco. Syracuse basketball used to be that turd. Now, cilantro at best. Assume you agree?
No. I am very excited for the game on Saturday. This is Syracuse-Georgetown, assface. This isn't exactly the same, but it's still axe murderin'. It's still wanting to watch III stare off into the void and wonder why he pretends to coach his team. It's about knowing that Georgetown wears grey because Syracuse is going to burn Georgetown so badly that it'll just be a pile of ash. It's about wanting to buy a submarine so I can pilot it down the Potomac and spring a sneak attack on Georgetown. Stop being a fucking shitheel DePaul fan and get your act together, dope. You're part of this because a part of you doesn't exist without it.