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A-10 tourney...Why I now love Joe Lunardi
3/14/05
by Clay

Being snubbed by Joe Lunardi grated on me. Jason and Shekhar did their best to make me feel better about my "interview" as we walked back from the US Bank Arena through the entirely empty streets. Since GW had advanced to the finals to go up against St. Joe's we decided to stop off and have a few celebratory beers at the Westin. Our few celebratory beers soon turned into a few celebratory pitchers and before long we were firmly embraced by a couple of felllow Colonial supporters from Oregon, TGT (her gwhoops "handle") and her husband DT (so far as I know he has no gwhoops handle but he does have initials). We met TGT when she inquired,

"Are you guys gwhoops posters?"
Which prior readers of my top-25 column are already well-acquainted with. Sadly, this might be the most exciting opening line any woman has ever uttered to me.
After giving her my "handle" (I am well aware that this sounds like something that might be illegal even for consenting adults) of Kleos on gwhoops.com we actually engaged in the following conversation about the anonymous host of the gwhoops.com site,

"Have you seen Herve?" I asked.
"I think I saw Herve," TGT said, "he was with some of those other GW guys."
"You actually saw Herve?" I believe my tone might best be described as giddy.
"I'm sure I saw Herve."
"But Herve's not here now?" I asked.
"No, I dont think so."
"Did you see PhillyGWfan?" Jason asked killing the pursuit of Herve.

As an aside Jason has a personal vendetta against PhillyGWfan for slamming him recently for reposting the link to an article from CBS Sportsline that had already been posted before on the message board. Here is the actual transcript from Jason's first post on gwhoops.com. These are in reverse chronological order but basically it just consisted of a link with no text followed by an attack, rebutal and unanswered counter. Jason insists his omitted e in tourney was a typo and not attributed to spelling uncertainty.
Jason:
Doyel's article Re: GW's shot at the tourny: http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/8231824

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RE: SPORTSLINE ARTICLE
2/27/2005 10:05:08 AM
POSTED BY: PHILLYGWFAN

One of the best things I have ever seen is a sign in one of the biology labs at UC Irvine that reads "Thank you for not doing research that has already been done."

RE: SPORTSLINE ARTICLE
2/27/2005 11:00:59 AM
POSTED BY: JDADDY8

Just trying to accommodate the casual, less than diligent, blogger. Didn't mean to offend your deft mastery of all web-postings GW related.

RE: SPORTSLINE ARTICLE
2/27/2005 1:38:46 PM
POSTED BY: PHILLYGWFAN

It's just that this is the third time it's been posted in the last 24 hrs.

...

Just as Jason's anger at PhillyGWfan threatened to pour over, who should appear but Joe "BigTimer" Lunardi. He strode right into the bar and started working the crowd. While I saw him receive no fistbumps, he did receive the following: ample handshakes, warm smiles, jovial hellos, and one extended hug with a man. At no time did he big time anyone. My blood began to boil. At this point, I did not yet love Joe Lunardi, but was very close to loving him but would never have believed it. I was like Renee Zellwegger right before Tom Cruise came back in Jerry McGuire. After a time of contemplating my next move, we convinced TGT to follow us over to Joe Lunardi and take our photograph with him. I approached BigTimer Lunardi with a great deal of trepidation and tapped him on the shoulder. I went with Joe again because he had a picture of Jameer Nelson on a beach as his screensaver.

"Hey Joe," I said.
Immediately a different response. He actually beamed at me. My heart might have gone atwitter. "Can we get a picture?"
"No way you guys want a picture." More beaming.
"Really a picture. You get us through the day at work. We probably account for about fifteen hits on your bracketology page a day. We're lawyers and in front of our computers all day."
Then Joe flew in with a quip. "Hopefully you're not billing for that time."
Joe Lunardi led us all in strained laughter.
"My name's Clay," I said, extending my hand, "and this is Shekhar..."
"And you must be Mover," Lunardi quipped to Jason. More strained laughter. Then Joe stopped making quips and I gazed deep into his eyes. I wanted to tell him he was the best bracketologist there ever was. Even if he was the only bracketologist there ever was.
Instead we spent the next ten minutes talking about basketball.

He told us that St. Joe's was going to beat us tomorrow in the finals because we gave them too many open looks. At no point did he big time us. He was so welcoming I almost forgot about the screen-saver of Jameer Nelson on the beach from his laptop. Eventually, we all liked him so much it was hard for us to be angry the next morning when he removed George Washington from his "Last four in" category. So now I love Joe Lunardio and if he wants my affection to return then Ken Pomeroy of www.kenpom.com had better give me a significant show of interest soon. Or else I'm sticking with my man Joe Lunardi.

...
We left our spectacular photographer TGT behind and headed out to the bars on Main Street. The first bar we went into was crowded but Shekhar leaned over to me and said,
"I'm the only brown person in here."

So we left and went next door to some place that we shouldn't have been let into. We went back again the next day and we had so much fun here we still don't know what the name of this place was. This was because our eyesight was a bit glazed. It was such a cool place Tyrone Hill was there.

And he was there because even though he is really an ugly man, girls at this bar still loved him because he was rich and could buy them more expensive tops that barely covered their chests. Immediately we made our way to the dance floor where we proceeded to stand in an awkward triangle and watch the dance floor. There was more cleavage in this club than I had believed existed in the entire city of Cincinnati. The only thing I could think was this, how in the world did all these people get here without ever appearing on the streets? I hit upon one possibility that I immediately dismissed as being founded in the ridiculous, that floo powder from Harry Potter. Then I thought some more while we stood awkwardly beside the dance floor and suddenly I had my answer. They came via the Underground Railroad, probably from the museum which was conveniently located right beside the US Bank Arena.

Suddenly Cincinnati made a lot more sense. Regardless we left alone, but so did Tyrone Hill so I didn't feel that bad.
...
Also for anyone who saw the picture of us with Joe Lunardi posted yesterday, that was an error on my part and sort of killed the suspense about how Lunardi and our relationship was going to play out. I apologize for ruining the story.

Tomorrow I need anyone who is an expert on birds to have their friends read the site to help us out with a question.