FanPost

Some Mild Reading while we wait for the Polls. WARNING: Satire Alert!

One of the hottest conversations in college hoops today are the Boilermakers of the University of Purdue, whose campus is situated between the small Indiana towns of Fowler and Chauncey. The 2017-2018 Basketball season began with high expectations from the National media, who recognized the potential of having no less than four veteran seniors on a roster. Many AP pundits had the Boilermakers listed as their pre-season favorites to not only reach the Final Four, but as title contenders and Big Ten favorites. Their play to date, however, has been a let down of expectation. Only Lansing voting AP correspondent Oscar Grouch remains a stalwart supporter of the Boilermakers, having them listed on the top of his ballot since before the start of this season of turmoil. His succinct statement "They’re great!" has the Boilermakers brand buzzing breakfast tables from Brooklyn to Burbank.

The failure of the Boilermakers to meet expectations is simple to see. With four seasoned seniors on the team, analysts expected to see seamless cohesion among the players, when in fact anything but has been true. Senior guard Dakota Montana has remained characteristically selfish in his shot selection. In an early season game against the Fairfield Stags, Montana went cowboy shooting from long range. The only reason he did not end the night with six complete air-balls was the propensity of the ball repeatedly finding the bottom of the net. His selfish play was recently on display in a nationally televised game against in-conference arch-rivals, the Mongooses of Hairbaugh University. When the official scorekeeper indicated a ball had been deflected off Montana’s hand, the Purdue guard head-butted the scorekeeper on the forehead, leaving behind a splattering of blood (for unknown reasons the ball was subsequently ruled off a Mongoose player).

Starting Power Forward Vinnie Van Gogh, once plagued by schizophrenia, has developed a narcissistic trend in his play. In a recent game against the Moosylvania Goofy-Goobers Vincent ignored teammates to the tune of scoring 20 first half points. After apparent complaints by Boilermaker coach Pants Matter regarding Vinnie’s lack of team play, the forward took himself out of the team rhythm, refusing to score more than 5 points after halftime.

Perhaps the biggest failure of this Boilermaker team is the lack of development by reserve point guard TJ Pompoms. In the recent win against Moosylvania, PomPoms played less than twenty minutes while claiming illness. This did little to please Pants Matter. "Even if one of my players is slightly ill, I expect them to play through the malaise," he said in a post-game presser. "If one of my players needs to barf, he’ll do it on an opponent’s shoes, not in the locker room."

Sophomore guard Eddie Boogie still shows promise as a young presence on the senior-laden team, but tends to be distracted by cheerleaders. When asked about the young guard, the Boilermaker coach only shrugged and said "Eddie’s gotta boogie."

Another Boiler star of the future has seen his playing time restricted. Sophomore phenom and ESPN consensus POY candidate Jonny Joose inspires chants from the home crowd to "Turn the Joose loose!". Against Moosylvania, however, the Boilermaker coach held the popular guard off the court for disciplinary reasons. "We have strict team rules in this club," said Pants Matter, "If you can’t follow the dress code, you don’t play."

With so much discord among the Boilermakers, there is little wonder players have come out of practices sporting bruised and blackened eyes and bad attitudes. An exasperated Boilermaker coach has been seen uncharacteristically shaking fists in reaction to the play of his athletes in recent games. Point in fact, there have only been two games to date in the current season where the Boilermakers have played to pre-season expectations, which unfortunately for them resulted in two losses at the hands of a pair of teams who got hot at the right time. In every other game, the Boilermakers have squandered huge leads, been saved by officials, or simply caught their opponents on extremely bad nights. The team chemistry of the Boilermakers has been so bad that their own fan base spends countless hours each week arguing point and counterpoint on what needs to happen to right the ship, even calling out for the firing of their coach.

The fact remains, however, that the Boilers have amassed a thirteen-game winning streak, which has some expressing suspicions about how clean the Boilermaker program might actually be. Speculation has arisen about the addition of seven-foot-three center Max Harm, whom Pants Matter found in eastern Europe working as a lighting technician. The unpolished freshman center has been vicious on defense, throwing fists in fits of emotion and swatting after anything that moves under the basket. Coupled with the presence of senior center Irate Hoss, an eight-foot-tall bad-attituded genetic throwback from the days of Viking lore, there is little surprise in allegations from Purdue opponents.

"Two weeks before the Boilers come to town, I had a team that could beat any three-man squad in the country," reported Goofy Goober coach Petite Ricardo. "Then rumors about the morality of one of my players start popping up. For his own safety I had to take him out of competition. Soon after, one of my players shows up to practice with a shoulder that looked like it had been twisted from behind. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide."

Coach Ricardo’s father, former Lewdville University sex education professor and head basketball coach Big John Ricardo, has similar sentiments. "Pants Matter showed up at one of my recruits’ doorstep last summer. Next thing I know, the FBI is making allegations against my program, putting the future of one of my star recruits on hold indefinitely, and I’m sent packing." Muddyland coach Mac Truncheon voiced similar sentiments. "When we faced the Boilermakers I had a squad that had a chance to make a run in the NCAA tournament," he lamented recently. "Now I’ve got 2 players out for the year with injuries; we’ll be lucky to make it into the NIT."

Most telling about the Boilermakers’s uncanny success despite team friction is the testimony of recently retired NCAA referee official Valentine Tellytubby. "I watched that big kid," he said, refusing to provide a name or even a team, "knock down an opponent almost causally with his hip. I was going to call a foul on him, but he pulled a walnut from somewhere, placed it in his elbow and shattered the shell by flexing his massive arm. He held the shell shards up and dumped them on the court, then pointed at my crotch and mouth the words They’re next. I was so scared I swallowed my whistle and retired."

With stories like this, there’s no wonder this team has earned the moniker of Bloody Boilers.

With the season half over, there is little time left for the Boilermakers to pull themselves together and clean up their program to be on par with the rest of the NCAA. Somehow the Boilers are still in the top five in the AP poll, but the media, and the Boiler fanbase, are losing patience.

In other news, sports apparel mogul Larva Ball signed a new deal preventing European teams with winning records from playing against his sons’ team."



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