Basketball Homecourt Classic

Stanford 111, Harvard 56
Stanford 97, Northwestern State 58
Stanford 67, UC Santa Barbara 48

A rant.

Stanford played three games last week. Together they comprised what is now officially known as the "Basketball Travelers' Classic."

"Classic." Common English word. Has a very common English meaning, viz., "A major, long-standing sporting event." (Or one of a few other meanings, but that'll do for our purposes.)

Not "Something we invented to get us a few extra home games this season." OK? This is the first time you are holding this event. In all likelihood, it is also the LAST time you are holding this event.

Let me put this in as simple of terms as possible: it's not fucking "classic" until you've had it more than once. Now, personally, I'd like to see the term restricted to events that have happened at least five times, since that implies a certain degree of longevity and continuity. But I'd settle for twice.

I know, I know. All classic events have to start sometime. Etc etc. Can't we let the event speak for itself? Believe me, in today's sports media landscape, anything that's even remotely close to "classic" will be referred to as such. Cf. "A classic play by Shawn Merriman!" (Merriman sacks the QB, quickly frisks him for any steroids he might conveniently be carrying on him, and goes into a spastic dance of frustration when he doesn't find any.) Or "A classic blast off the bat of Manny Ramirez!" (Manny rips a ball 400 feet, watches it intently in case it sprouts wings and flies back onto the field, observes its departure from play, points to the pitcher to say "Hey, you and me, we did this together!", then realizes he needs to pee and jogs uncomfortably around the bases before heading off toward the Green Monster.)

Guys-- can you at least pay off a sportswriter to describe the event as "classic" before appropriating the title?

In this case, the results of the actual games were pretty thoroughly "freestyle", which is precisely what a Stanford fan wants to see. (Warning: the previous sentence is a cross-country skiing joke. If you are not from Scandinavia, please imagine I just said something funny.) Playing classic games with Harvard has a disturbing tendency to imply future un-classic games with, say, Arizona later in the season.

Next time, I'll recap the forthcoming showdown with Northwestern and take a glance over the Stanford roster to see what snarky comments I can get away with before the season even really starts. (Odd: Within its first 4 games, Stanford plays Northwestern and Northwestern State, which are completely unrelated universities 1000-odd miles apart. Odder: Despite being from the Big Eleven, Northwestern has fewer all-time NCAA Tournament appearances [zero] than Northwestern State of the Southland Conference [two]. Northwestern is, uniquely, the only team in a BCS conference to have never appeared in the Big Dance.) If you are one of the seventeen people in the entire Bay Area who actually subscribes to the Big Ten Network, do tell me how it went.