(no subject)

[slammerkinbabe]

Hello! I am posting from the sportsbar section of our local Uno's, because our cable at home died just before the start of the UPitt/Michigan State game. λ grew up across the street from MSU ("I didn't just grow up there! I was raised on their basketball! I had tickets to every home game! My parents--" "OKAY OKAY I GET IT") and then went to Pitt for undergrad. So this is a matchup that she has been dying to see for many years, and this is the first time it's ever happened. (She says it goes beyond team loyalties: "It's their techniques. They throw more elbows than anybody. 3/4 of the players will foul out. It'll be a great game." Me: "...")

The problem is that now that the game's actually on, she seems more agonized than joyful, and more confused than agonized:

[Pitt makes a basket.]
Her: [clapping vigorously] Noooooo!
Me: ...
H: Get back get back no GO GO SHOOT BLOCK IT NO YES!
M: Who are you rooting for?
H: I DON'T KNOW.
M: But--
H: Whoever's losing.
M: I--
H: Shut up.
M: But you do know that if you do it that way, the team you're rooting for is sure to l--
H: SHUT UP.

I don't think I get sports?

Comments

[drbuzzkill.livejournal.com]

I understand sports. Mostly. What I don't understand is basketball. So I watch MSU football instead. It makes more sense and more to the point it isn't boring. You can tell her I said that, too. ;)

[everypoembreaks.livejournal.com]

MSU football? What's the point? ;]

[docmanhattan.livejournal.com]

If Λ doesn't say "you'ns" for the second-person plural, she should be rooting for MSU. It's a Southwestern Pennsylvania thing. Go Pitt!

[ftmichael.livejournal.com]

Throwing elbows is ... good now? *blinks*

I could see it being entertaining, sort of, but generally that sort of thing just annoys the crap out of me. Play a decent game or get the bloody hell off the pitch court.

In any sport (but particularly basketball because the scoring - hee - is so frequent), with a game between two pretty evenly-matched teams, the score is likely to fluctuate a lot in terms of who is winning. So λ rooting for whoever's losing does probably mean she'll spend a significant amount of time rooting for each of them. And when you're not more loyal to one than to the other, and neither of them is really the underdog, and you want to root for the underdog, that's how you do it!

Hopefully that helps a bit.

[cabenson.livejournal.com]

Thank god I re-read that and realized it was Michigan STATE and not University of Michigan. I may have had to unfriend you ;)

Your wife can explain, I'm sure.

Go Bucks!

[halfacricket.livejournal.com]

Your wife can explain, I'm sure.

Can I ever! I've been trying to explain the distinction for a long time. At least now she has a mnemonic device to remind her which of the two I like. But during last night's game she kept referring to MSU as "Michigan", with the explanation that, since U of M wasn't playing in the game, the one word identifier was enough. ;)