An Evening With Dickie V

All season long I’ve been waiting to spend an evening with Dick Vitale. Though he’s called more than a dozen Duke games since November, I held off, knowing that even when Vitale was at his Duke-loving best (last Wednesday at Florida State, for instance), nothing would compare to how excited he’d be at Cameron Indoor Stadium on the night J.J. Redick played his last game in front of the Duke faithful. Oh, how sweet it would be.
But once again I out-thought myself. Just like last year, when I forgot that the first Duke/Carolina tilt was blacked-out on ESPN in ACC country, I failed to remember that Brad Nessler, and not Mike Patrick, is Vitale’s partner on ESPN’s primetime weekend telecasts.
It seems like a minor point, but without Patrick by his side, Vitale always dials it down a notch (from 11 to 10.9). Nessler is a consummate pro and lets Vitale’s Duke-love flow, but never encourages it. Patrick, in recent years, has actually jumped on the Blue Devil bandwagon and is now the vice-president of the of Broadcasters for Always Loving Duke Society (BALDS), just under Vitale who is dictator-for-life.
Not having Patrick in the booth with Vitale was a major disappointment, to be sure (and certainly cut down the amount of material to work with). But since all ACC Tournament games on ESPN are blacked-out here as well, I had to press on for the good of the country, nay, mankind as a whole.
Without further interruption, an evening with Dickie V:

9:06 PM Tip-off in Durham. After eight seconds the officials stop the game and gather at half-court to review their game-assignments, including who will administer throw-ins on the far side of the court, who will be responsible for calling goaltending and interference violations and who will be in charge of asking Coach K when he wants a foul called on Carolina.

9:07 PM Vitale blames Redick’s struggles over the past three games to emotional, not physical, fatigue. I suppose this is to be expected as many college seniors experience a sense of general malaise prior to graduation. In Redick’s case, however, he’s just going to miss the pre-game backrubs from Chris Collins.

9:08 PM Redick converts a three-pointer on his first attempt of the game. ESPN4 focuses in on Vitale’s boner.

9:09 PM Redick is 2-2. “I guess he’s answering all those critics that had that theory about fatigue,” Vitale shouts. Um, wasn’t that your theory, Dick?

9:09 PM Redick hits his third consecutive shot to start the game. Vitale says, “somebody call the fire chief,” which is his subtle way of telling us Redick is flaming.

9:12 PM Vitale breaks out his patented “Redick shot that from (insert nearby city)” line. The man is like a modern-day Rand McNally. Assuming Rand McNally loved schools with overrated academics, hypocritical basketball coaches and a student body filled with losers, geeks and this guy:

9:14 PM As Brad Nessler is talking about Johnny Dawkins, Vitale jumps in and says, “we define him as Mr. Class.” Breaking out my trusty Vitale-to-English dictionary, I discover that phrase means: “I’m an idiot.”

9:16 PM When Greg Paulus dribbles he always carries the ball with his dribbling hand and clears out with the other. His ballhandling is more illegal than Eddie Sutton’s blood alcohol content.

9:19 PM Redick misses his second shot in-a-row. Vitale puts his cyanide capsule under his tongue.

9:20 PM Erin Andrews says Shelden Williams told her he once wanted to play basketball like Michael Jordan. Instead he settled for looking like Ken Griffey Jr. when he was on The Simpson's.

9:21 PM Gotta give my old buddy Zac Cooper credit for that one, by the way.

9:25 PM David Noel just let Lee Melchionni take him off the dribble which is sort of like losing to Stephen Hawking in a footrace.

9:28 PM ESPN covers Southern Utah as part of their Pride of the Program celebration. The Thunderbirds, it should be noted, have exactly one less national TV appearance this season than the Cameron Crazies.

9:30 PM Earlier on ESPN Gameday J.J. Redick said he’d want Heath Ledger to play him in a movie of his life. And there I was, bereft of fish, barrel and gun.

9:33 PM ESPN2 has turned their above the rim cam into a J.J. Redick cam. LOGO runs a simulcast.

9:34 PM Vitale: “Duke is different because they have the desire to win the whole thing, not just make it to the Tournament.” That one’s true. There are no other teams in college basketball besides Duke that aspire to win the national championship. Top-notch commentary, Dick.

9:40 PM UNC takes its first lead, at 23-22. Vitale begins fashioning a noose out of his blue tie.

9:41 PM Redick misses his fifth straight shot but gets bailed out with a late-whistle from the officials. Redick is to zebras as Jane Goodall was to gorillas.

9:45 PM Shelden Williams commits his fourth foul of the game yet has only been called for half that number, confirming my long-standing assertion that you can figure out how many fouls Williams will have at the end of the game by dividing his total number of actual fouls by two. The inverse happens to his test grades in sociology class, by the way.

9:47 PM Melchionni dives on the floor, recovers the loose ball and slides four feet with it. Vitale is unconcerned with why this wasn’t called a travel because he’s too busy maxing out the audio levels on his mic with praise for the “gutsy, hard-nosed, PTP’er who is absolutely crucial to this program, baby.” And who’s also averaging 6.3 points per game.

9:49 PM I now feel better about hating Kobe after he’s given me permission to do so in his Nike commercial. Maybe Redick will do that in a poem for me one day.

9:50 PM In a promo for the 47 halftime shows ESPN has running on various networks, we see Jason “Jay” Williams live in Chapel Hill with the dude who won Dream Job. Williams arrived in Chapel Hill on Friday, just in time to give a driving lesson to this guy.

9:51 PM Redick has missed six straight shots, but Duke regains the lead on a Sean Dockery runner. Vitale says, “You can’t let Duke get a lead in a game like this or they’ll stick it right in your heart.” (Deep breath… You don’t have to make every joke… Just let it go… Let it go.)

9:52 PM Cal Ripken is shown in the crowd and looks a little nervous. After all, J.J. Redick is only 2,626 consecutive missed shots away from breaking his record.

9:58 PM Halftime. Duke is up 38-37. Vitale runs into the locker room to play a calming cello concerto during Coach K’s halftime speech.

10:04 PM Hoosiers is on one of the Encore channels. I bet if Ollie were on Duke, Vitale would vote him third-team All-ACC.

10:16 PM Redick hasn’t made a field goal in 23 minutes. It’s a good thing he’s had plenty of experience with not being able to score.

10:17 PM Redick just missed everything on a three-point attempt, barely scratching the bottom of the backboard. Vitale screams, “that’s not J.J. Redick!!” Since Vitale once called the real Redick a “shooting Shakespeare” I can only assume he thinks the Redick on the court at Cameron right now is actually Christopher Marlowe.

10:17 PM Shelden Williams just fouled out. And by “fouled out”, I of course mean, “hasn’t been charged with a foul in nine minutes of game time.”

10:18 PM Shelden Williams just fouled out of an NBA game. I’m just kidding of course. I meant NBDL.

10:22 PM Vitale says Duke has to get Redick a good look, which seems to indicate Redick’s eight straight misses have been the result of Carolina’s stifling defense and not Redick’s erratic shooting. I’d made a Dick Cheney joke here, but you’ve heard them all so I’ll just move on.

10:25 PM If Shelden Williams is The Landlord than Tyler Hansbrough has a rent-controlled apartment in the building.

10:28 PM Redick makes a long shot to break his string. Despite his foot clearly being on the line, the official signals for a three-pointer. As this was taking place, I was talking on IM with my cousin George. The transcript, which took place over a span of 32 seconds, is below:

Me: tha'ts a TWO
Me: THATS A TWO
George: 2
George: 2
George: 2
George: 2
George: REWINGF
George: REWIND
Me: i will on commercial... this is ridiculous
George: WAS IT?
George: OK
Me: they wont show it i bet
Me: here we go (the replay is shown)
Me: THATS A TWO
George: OH OH OHAOSFH'ASOUIDHF'SADOUIFG
George: F---
Me: holy s---!
Me: holy s---!
Me: this is unbelievable. totally believable, of course, but totally unbelievable. (the replay is shown again)
George: WOW
George: WIWIWIWIOWG
George: IPwehg
George: wipEJWbr
George: e[
George: i wonder how peter is enjoying his movie
(Note: Peter is George’s brother and my cousin. He was also sitting in front of a television Saturday night, except his was not tuned to any of the networks of the ESPN family. Instead, he was watching Corpse Bride with his lady-friend. This led to heckling, taunting and a plethora of name-calling the following afternoon. I'm pretty sure I also punched him.)

10:30 PM Nessler, to his credit, actually mentions something about Redick being over the line on the “three”. He stops mid-sentence when Vitale activates his morphine-drip.

10:36 PM Williams gets his 7th foul.

10:36 PM Williams gets his 8th foul. Jeez, even Kyle Visser could be defensive player of the year if he got 10 fouls to work with per game.

10:42 PM If this game were being played in one of 22 other states, Tyler Hansbrough's abuse of Shelden Williams in the paint could be classified as a hate crime.

10:48 PM Williams actually gets called for a fourth foul. In other news, Satan has his hands on the thermostat ready to turn the temperature down should Williams foul out of this game.

10:48 PM All the chairs on the UNC sidelines have DUKE written on them, although Roy Williams’ chair has a piece of tape over the writing. I don’t have a joke here, I just thought it was interesting.

10:52 PM Vitale: “If you think about it, Duke has really been an overachieving team this season.” Ninety minutes ago he said Duke had the best duo in the nation in Redick and Williams. Now they’re overachieving with, again, the best duo in the nation???!!! Dick, all the Duke students might be overachievers, but the only overachieving that’s done by the basketball team is on draft night.

10:53 PM Redick goes diving into a mass of male bodies scrambling for a loose ball. I’m thinking this incident will inspire a poem… Maybe two.

10:54 PM Redick is 5-19 for the game and 23 of his last 78 overall, but it’s not his fault Duke’s losing, Vitale says. He is… wait for it… emotionally fatigued.

10:56 PM With Duke down eight, Vitale sounds like his dog just died. After being shot by Billy Packer.

10:58 PM Hansbrough nails a three and the camera cuts to a shot of the hot blonde next to his dad jumping up and down. I only mention this because she’s, once more, a hot blonde jumping up and down.

11:01 PM Vitale: “It’s a rough night for J.J. He’s had a brick-laying day. It’s sad in a way.” Why is it sad, Dr. Seuss? That his really poor play, has made students pray, that their night won’t be gray, and it will turn out OK, with a win on display and they’ll have a soiree, where they’ll be able to say, that Derek Jeter’s gay?

11:02.10 PM If Redick throws up any more bricks, the NCAA might have to investigate whether or not he’s making any money on the side as a stonemason.

11:02.30 PM If Redick throws up any more bricks, he might manage to knock the ugly out of some of those Duke co-eds in the student section.

11:02.50 PM If Redick throws up any more bricks, Duke will have to dedicate a new building tomorrow.
OK, that’ll do.

11:03 PM Duke has quickly cut UNC’s lead to three with 1:37 left. Vitale is screaming, “this is phhhhennnnomenallll, baby! I was trying to be quiet, let people enjoy the crowd. But ohhhhhhhhh, what a great night!!!!”
To recap: When UNC is playing lights-out basketball and morphing from a young team with potential into a battle-tested team with championship aspirations, Vitale barely peeped. But Duke makes a little run at home on Senior Night to get within three points of a team left for dead in the pre-season and all of a sudden he’s as excited as Don King on fight night.

11:04 PM Redick has a chance to tie the game with a wide open three. He misses short. Vitale says he “must be tired,” but fails to mention why Redick would be any more tired than, say, all other college basketball players who play lots of minutes. Did I miss something here? Redick is the only one who exerts effort in a game? Redick is the only one who doesn’t get much rest during the conference schedule? Just because he plays on Duke are we supposed to believe he tries twice as hard as everyone else all the time? I’d go on, but I’m too emotionally fatigued from hating Redick for four years. You understand, right?

11:06 PM Vitale: “Redick always makes sure Melchionni gets lots of touches.”

11:08 PM Coach K yells at the refs demanding to know why the hell they let him use a seven-man rotation all season.

11:10 PM Sean Dockery just shoved Tyler Hansbrough in the face. Seriously, he just took a whack at his face. Not surprisingly, he isn’t assessed a foul nor does Vitale choose to mention this exercise in bitchery. “When Lee Melchionni was stepped on in the VT game,” writes The Wolfman, “you’d have thought he was shot.” But maybe Vitale has a point. I hear involuntary arm-flailing is a side-effect of extreme mental fatigue.

11:11 PM Game over. North Carolina wins. Vitale goes to Chapel Hill to drive his SUV into a big crowd on Franklin Street.