[This is a long one, there is a TLDR at the bottom]
(This isn't just a story of revenge. This is a story of how revenge hurts both parties)
To this day, a good revenge story gives me a warm bubbly feeling inside. I believe it comes from this college experience years ago when I got revenge on my cheating girlfriend and it felt GOOD. I know I'm not suppose to enjoy it but I can't deny how satisfying it feels. Its probably one of my favorite feelings in the world even though I'm ashamed to admit it. So I decided to write my first post about this because I don't tell the story often. It is so extensive and honestly just makes me look bad.
I'm going to try my best to not paint a picture where my X looks as bad as possible and me as innocent as possible. I want to write this accurately as I can, even if it makes me look bad.
[Bit of context and back story]
At the time of this story, I played division 1 NCAA basketball at a school so I traveled a lot (weekly in different cities and states) and my entire life revolved around this.
During the events of this story I was in the early stages of a horrible drug and alcohol habit. Years after this story I ended up getting sober and joined a program whos name you can find at the front of almost any phonebook. I am sure many people reading this are also sober and will understand how we addicts/alcoholics can be. This story is an effort to explain a character defect that manifested from the events in this story that lead me down a very dark path, however, I don't mean this story to come off in a "self pity" kind of way.
Lastly, I was always a good kid, I was never "troubled". My upbringing was very difficult but I was able to keep an overall kindness in my spirit to other people and almost always "did the right thing" or "took the high road". When it came to dating, I knew people cheated in relationships but at the time of this story I always chalked it up to other people "not doing things the way I did". I never really thought it would happen to me.. I always thought that because I was a "5 star boyfriend" and my "amazing choice" in women, infidelity would never be a part of my dating journey. I was a naïve. I really thought highly of myself and also had a real arrogance like any guy in his early 20s I guess.
[The Build Up]
I was in my Jr year in University I had been single for about a year after me and my high school gf finally broke up after 3 years. I checked that relationship off as my "learning experience" and I now knew what to look for in my next girlfriend. The next woman I chose to have a relationship with I would most likely marry and start my future with. (I know I was young and dumb and thought I knew everything LOL)
I had my eye on this girl at my school [we will call her Lisa]. I saw Lisa around the collegiate athletic facility (the university teams training grounds, and locker rooms). Lisa ran for the track team and was damn good. The various athletic teams often had parties and I knew that the first one I saw her at I would introduce myself and try to chat her up a bit and see where it led.
Soon enough I see Lisa at one of these parties and we pass each other on the stairs. We make eye contact and she smiled at me. I sparked a conversation with her and after going back and forth a bit we exchange numbers. We begin the classic American style of flirting where we constantly just hint things back and forth indirectly. We slowly progressed the relationship in this manner for weeks. Sending texts back and forth hinting that we were interested in each other but also playing it cool to not let the other person know we had a crush on them.
At the time, she was on a break with her current boyfriend who was a popular player on the football team. She ended up leaving him completely to date me. This shoulda been a red flag obviously but remember, I had severe hubris. At the time her leaving him to date me just gave me a superiority complex. I was playing good in sport and if she was willing to leave this guy for me then she will never leave me for another guy.
Lmao I was a fucking idiot.
I cant express how much I was into Lisa. I was addictively attracted to her and had that weird feeling of "I cant believe my crush is actually into me to". I really was so drowned and blinded by my crush on her I missed so many red flags but our relationship began progressing really fast. Because of this I didn't really do a proper inventory on why I liked her so much.
[Fast forward like 8 months later.]
We are together officially. Lisa has her own athlete's dorm room but I was a couple years older than her and was working during the summers full time and part time during school / season and had my own apartment near campus and Lisa was basically living with me. She even would stay there when I was out of town which was like 3 or 4 days of every week because we were in season and the team was flying all over the country. Me and Lisa were deeply in love regardless.
At the end of the season I had planned two massive back to back parties. One was for my teammate's birthday (Friday night) and then my birthday (Saturday night). They just happened to be one day after the other and luckily landed on a Friday and Saturday night. Me and Lisa got drunk Friday night and had some unprotected sex.
Lisa kept a period-tracking calendar app on her phone. She was asleep and I drunkenly remembered she always marked down in her calendar when we had unprotected sex so she knew if she should be worried if she missed her period. She missed her period often because she was an athlete. My inebriated brain thought she should put it in her calendar now because we would forget the next day since we were so fucked up. So I woke her up and said "can you put in that calendar that we had unprotected sex". At this point it was like 5am and we were that 5am kinda drunk where you're mostly just tired. She unlocked her phone and opened the app and before she could even do it she fell back asleep. So I took the phone while it was still unlocked and proceeded to try and figure out how to put it in her calendar myself.
[side note] Through our entire relationship, Lisa went through my computer and phone constantly. She was very insecure and always had her suspicions. I didn't care that she was doing this all the time. She never found anything because I never did shady shit, ever.
Again, looking back at this its an obvious red flag I missed. Remember I thought this girl would never cheat on me.
So this wasn't one of those stories where I went through her phone looking for something and subsequently finding it. In this case I was innocently trying to navigate this damn period calendar while I was drunk and I was not suspicious at all.
When I looked at the period-calendar app on Lisa's phone, I saw all kinds of little markers on different days of each month. Each marker was a different color so I opened one to see what the color coding meant. I saw that red was obviously symbolling her period and then there was also black markers that showed when she had unprotected sex.
........This is when my heart sank into my stomach......
This fucking calendar was PEPPERED with black markers. It looked like a checker board with only a hand full of red pieces left and ALL the fucking black ones..... There was black markers on dates that I was in a different city playing basketball.... I proceeded to open all of black markers going back for our entire relationship. We did not have unprotected sex very often. MAYBE once or twice a month. She had written the names of the guys she had unprotected sex with in the notes section of the black markers. There was a total of 4 guys through out the entirety of our relationship that she allowed to penetrate her raw. Some months there was almost a dozens of those fucking black markers. Sometimes there was TWO in one day! Looking back on this I wonder if there were more unlisted men that I didn't see because she clearly only kept track of the guys and times she had UNPROTECTED sex.
In almost every story I hear of infidelity, it involves the discovery of text messages, being informed by a friend, or the classic coming home early and catching your partner red handed.
I, on the other hand, discovered a fucking well documented LEDGER of almost every time she cheated and had unprotected sex.
Amongst the 4 guys I discovered, one of them was her X that she originally left to date me. Cheating on me with him was a common occurrence. There was some other unkown guy she was also clearly sleeping with him regularly. The last 2 fellas looked to be just a one time thing but again like I said these markers were just the times she had sex without a condom. So who knows what the true story was there.
I sobered up real quick. I proceeded to look through Lisa's texts and calls and found nothing. However, at the time Android phones had a folder where you can see deleted texts but not the contents of the messages. She had THOUSANDS of deleted texts and calls but I couldn't see what they said but I saw the numbers and did a quick Facebook search and matched one with her X in addition to something like half a dozen other random dudes. The worst part was I found TWO of my teammates... one guy I was actually pretty close with.
I just put the phone down after a few minutes. The evidence was overwhelming. The more it seemed to look at the phone the more my insides began to hurt.
I felt so defeated. I cant fully describe the feeling but I'm sure anyone reading this that caught a significant other cheating knows what I'm talking about. I felt so stupid for trusting her and having no suspicions of her.
I couldn't stop thinking about how I regretted all the times that I had an "opportunity" to cheat and remained faithful to Lisa. I felt like and idiot for not cheating her when I could have. My loyalty felt like a waste. I know it sounds ridiculous and irrelevant to the fact that she was unfaithful. I think I obsessed over that because if I had cheated as well I wouldn't have hurt so much in that moment. All I could think about was about how much I was hurt. I would do anything to not feel the pain and embarrassment anymore.
[Question] Am I the only one who thought this way after catching their partner cheating? I'm curious about this.
I proceeded to leave my apartment and go for a long walk. I had never felt the emotions that were coming up and didn't know how to process them. My ego felt like it was literally dismantled in front of me. I wasn't sure what to do and I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. My sadness quickly turned to anger. I knew I was gunna get my revenge I just didn't know how yet.
I was SEETHING with rage and wanted make sure she never recovered from this.
My roommate/teammate and best friend at the who was sleeping on the couch in my living room [we will call him Bono] (an eastern European kid who stood 7 foot tall and was as Russian in demeanor as it you can imagine. He also had an equally ridiculous RL name hence: Bono) well, Bono called me shortly after I started my walk. I answered and he asked where I was. I asked him to keep this between us, and told him what happened. He stays on the phone and goes into my room and I hear him in his Russian accent yell at her "yo bitch, you cheated on OP?" Then I faintly hear her inaudibly say something in the background and him yelling at her to get out of the apartment. After hearing some scuffling Bono gets back on the line and says "yo! she gone, come back and lets talk"
I head back home and me and Bono go over what had happened. Things don't get sappy because we are both complete alpha males who both come from cultures where "men don't cry" and neither of us really knew what to say or do in this situation. He makes his best attempt to comfort me and says: "tonight is your birthday, we gunna get fucked up and find you some sluts. Fuck her! I never liked her anyway"
.... oh ya, this day was my birthday... forgot about that part ...
Me and Bono go out for breakfast. I am still a little drunk. My phone is blowing up with calls and texts from Lisa. I tell her I saw everything on her phone and I cant stand to speak with her or look at her. She keeps trying to convince me to let her come to my birthday party and I make it clear I don't want her there. She clearly was concerned about exactly what Bono suggested to me earlier when me and him chatted.
Lisa's entire reputation and popularity revolved around the fact that she was dating me. I think most people didn't like her in the first place but put up with her because we were together. She knew that if I acted single at my birthday party and she didn't show up everyone would know something was askew. I think Lisa was more worried about being embarrassed than our relationship.
I don't remember much of what happened that night. But one of my friends sent me a little package for my birthday from California filled with some really good weed, hash, moonrocks, some pills and "the devil's dandruff" and I proceeded to do a glorious swan dive into an intoxicated oblivion.
All I remember is sitting on my chair at the pregame for my party. There was two girls sitting on the arms of the chair and I still have a photo of that moment and I remember it vividly. We were preparing to head out. I had a few tables downtown at a popular nightclub. The booze and drugs were the only thing that made me feel normal. I had my sun glasses on and clearly had that happy loaded grin on my face. The longer you look at the photo of me on that chair, you can tell I'm hiding a huge amount of hurt.
Sitting on that chair, the cocktail of drugs start to take effect. This was the first time I ever used substances not to "party" but to feel better. To make me feel normal.
I remember thinking: "I want to feel this way for the rest of my life. I am never going to hurt like that ever again. With drugs, I have control and no one can hurt me again." Oh how ironic that turns out to be years down the line.
I told my teammates and friends that me and Lisa were done when they asked why she wasn't at the party. I didn't tell them why though. I also didn't show them that I was affected by it in anyway and just played it cool. I tried to focus everyone on the party ahead of us.
[The Revenge]
So this is one of those revenge stories where it was only half planned. I knew I wanted to get revenge on Lisa for hurting me so much. But I kind of just improvised as opportunities came up.
My original kind spirit had died at my birthday on that chair. All my morals went out the window. I never cheated in relationships therefore I believed I would never get cheated on. I realize now how dumb that is but that's what I thought at the time.
I didn't care what collateral damage I caused as long as my mission to hurt Lisa as much as possible was accomplished. So continued every day of my life with this new selfish mindset.
I was sitting at my computer later that next week skimming Facebook when I saw the profile of one of her track teammates on my feed. That's when I had my first vengeful idea. I decided I was going to attempt to get her teammates to bite the bait that I was about to cast out into the water. Though, I didn't have proof she hooked up with my teammates, she was clearly trying to hide conversations between them. So I was going to see how many people who are close to here I could "passionately hug". Luckily I had more options than she had when cheating on me. A women's track team is much larger than a men's basketball team. Also much better looking ;)
Lisa's teammate I originally spotted on my Facebook had a boyfriend but I thought: "clearly everyone cheats, lets see if its true". I proceed to do the little flirty social media dance with her. You know, the one where I like a couple of her photos, she likes a couple of mine back. I shoot her a message and BAM! shes at my house in my bed about a week later. I proceed to do something similar to other teammates of hers. All on her 4x4 relay team coincidentally.
2 of the 3 girls I "passionately hugged" had boyfriends and subsequently cheated on them with me which gave me some real mixed emotions. It stroked my broken ego and also made me bitter and sad. Giving me one of those "women aint shit! none of them are loyal" attitudes.
This is such a typical story of while fighting monsters I became a monster.
This actually became my go-to strategy because it accomplished two things in my fucked up mind. It exposed a cheater but more importantly if they were willing to cheat on their boyfriends they would:
A] be more secretive about it which meant the drama that would ensue when it came out would be elevated and
B] it made me feel better about Lisa cheating because it proved it wasn't me that was the problem. It was women that were the problem. (I know its fucked up but that's what I thought back then.)
I started to collect something from every girl that I hooked up with, like a bra, a pair of panties, or some jewelry etc.. (not for some creepy reason, but this is important later and was a part of my plan) Sometimes I didn't even have to try. One girl left a pair of very distinguishable shoes. I knew Lisa would know who's shoes they were. They belonged to the girl that Lisa's X boyfriend rebounded with after Lisa and him broke up which highly upset her because it was her friend. Now it would upset her more because that same girl slept with both of her X boyfriends. I especially tried to collect items if it was something that I knew Lisa could distinguish like a sweater from the women's track team with her teammates name on it. After some time I had collected a boatload of shit.
After a couple months or so, one of the Lisa's teammate's boyfriends found out about me and his girlfriend and it started a big beautiful dramatic explosion of series of events with her and her teammates. This led to all of them finding out about one another's promiscuity. The drama was MASSIVE. Even their coaches had to get involved it got so bad.
This made me feel so powerful in such and evil yet satisfying way. I fell in love with the destruction I was causing. (The most awesome part about all of it was that same week, the Athletics PR team had put massive posters of me all over campus promoting the next game. They were EVERYWHERE. Some of the posters took up the entire side of buildings) So Lisa and her friends had to see me all over campus every day while this drama was erupting all around them. I felt like a triumphant dictator. It was glorious and pathetic at the same time.
Their coach even proceeded to have a "serious" meeting with the compliance department and my team's coaches. My coaches literally laughed at her saying "this seems like and internal issue, but OP hasn't done anything illegal or broken any school policy so there is nothing we can do". This infuriated the women's track coach. Their team had fallen apart. Their national ranking began to plummet. Then Lisa's coach even got in trouble for being caught tearing down some of the smaller posters of me on campus in raging temper tantrum.
I loved all of it.
I continued to add fuel to the fire. Posting photos of me with girls, smiling, being happy every chance I could on Facebook and Instagram. But under it all, I was bitter. I was so deep into my new mindset I had already forgotten the kind hearted naïve kid I use to be. I hated my old self because I let some girl emasculate me. I was so full of self pity looking back it, its depressing. No one really knew though because I played the cool guy attitude in front of people.
There was even a girl on campus on one of the sports teams who claimed that she was pregnant with my kid after I pretended to like her the same way I did with all of the other girls on Lisa's team and soon as we "passionately hugged" I moved on. Its a long story, but it turned out she wasn't pregnant but the news or "press" that came from that further dug the knife deeper into Lisa's side. I left a trail of women I deceived and relationships I destroyed. I feel bad now but at the time I didn't care because they were equally at fault in my eyes since they were cheating on their boyfriends or sleeping with their friends X.
Quickly, girls became weary of me. Plus I was running out of "potential targets" (Fuck I was an awful human being then the way I was thinking) and I was going after girls that weren't even friends or on the track team with Lisa but were just around her in daily life. For example her classmates and as well as her own family. I even flirted with her sister who was married with a kid and I almost succeeded. She was down but her and Lisa's dad found out about it and stepped in and put a stop it all before we could do anything. Her sister was ostracized as the news spread within the family.
I wanted Lisa to know I was everywhere and constantly remind her how she fucked up. In my eyes this was all her fault and she unleashed this fury of chaos upon herself. She should never have fucked with me like that.
Lisa had to take an extended medical leave because of her depression and mental health issues she was experiencing from the whole situation. She was becoming suicidal. She even had to go on medication and lost TONS of weight. She began to look extremely unhealthy. The whole mess was torturing her and the more she hurt the better I felt. At this point I had already inflicted more damage than she did to me but I had become addicted to the feeling of power... I spent 0 time processing my own emotions or moving on from what happened. All I wanted was more revenge and I couldn't stop.
After weeks of ignoring Lisa's texts and calls she finally gets a hold of me by showing up to my apartment unannounced late at night. She was there to pick up some stuff she left from when she lived there to take home. She was actually a local and her parents lived close by. (She was still on her medical leave and no longer staying on campus but rather with her parents) I told her I would bring her stuff to her parents house that weekend but I couldn't let her in because I had "company". Which I did but it wasn't one of her teammates or friends unfortunately.
I then to take all the items I had collected from all the girls over the weeks. There was probably like 8 or 9 things from different girls including her teammates and threw their belongings in along with Lisa's stuff into big black trash bags. I took the bags to her house and then called Lisa's dad. I told him I left her stuff on his porch and to inform his demon daughter. Me and Lisa's dad actually really got along and he even took my side after Lisa and I broke up. But after all these events transpired he obviously had a negative opinion of me.
15 minutes after I get off the phone with her Lisa's dad, I get a call from Lisa. I answer because I want to hear her reaction to having all these other girls shit mixed in with hers. She was sobbing uncontrollably. It sounded like that half crying half mumbling thing people do when they are hysterical. She wasn't even angry, just desperately begging me to point to stop my tyranny.
I just smiled and baked in the glory of hearing her hurt. I responded "why were their other guys in our relationship? you mixed them into our relationship like I mixed other girls shit into your shit. Its perfect little ironic metaphor". I thought it sounded cool at the time and was real proud of myself. (*facepalm*)
I later found out from one of Lisa's friends (who knew she was cheating on me during our relationship) that Lisa was convinced I WAS THE ONE cheating on her because "I was always out of town." This doesn't make sense since I was out of town because of basketball, a very legit excuse. Not just randomly on my own accord. You could literally see my schedule on the school's website. I kept in contact with her constantly when I was gone but obviously when I had practice or team meetings I couldn't be on my phone. But she didn't have the logic in her brain to figure this out I guess. I assume its just an excuse she made to protect her insecurities about the whole fiasco or to keep face with people who knew she was cheating.
[months go by]
Lisa comes back to school from her medical leave and we bump into each other at the physical therapy center in our athlete facility building. I see this as yet another opportunity. It had been a while since I did something that hurt her and I was still hungry for more vengeance. I proceed to pretend like I want to rekindle things with her. She is cautious at first but eventually bites after about a week. We start to mend our "relationship". We proceed for about a month but I wouldn't call this a relationship. I forbid her to have any male friends nor is she allowed to go out and party with her girlfriends. I also need full access to all her accounts and her location at all times. It was more like a hostage situation. It gave me a sense of control.
Meanwhile I'm not being faithful at all. This was my plan all along. Finally, she finds out about me sleeping with a girl in one of her classes and we have a nasty "breakup". I told her that she literally knows what it felt like to be me when we last dated. Yet again, I felt Triumphant. It was just another chance to hurt her and I did.
[After this we don't speak for YEARS.]
I graduate university and move to Central America. She messages me while I'm there about a year after I moved and about 2 years after we last spoke. At this point my life has become that of a real degenerate. I was doing copious amounts of drugs on a daily basis and about 75% of my life was involved in some sort of illegal or nefarious activities. But I still blame her for me becoming the dark soul that I was and taking no responsibility for bitter immoral nature. I hadn't had another relationship since her and always had trouble because I couldn't trust a women in any capacity anymore. Even after years had passed, I saw this instance of her messaging me as yet another opportunity to hurt her.
We begin to talk as friends and even getting flirty with each other over Facebook messenger. Mind you there is literally many countries, states and an ocean between us at this point. I was planning a trip back to my old university to visit some friends. However I told her was different: I explained to her I was moving back to the city for a new job I was just offered. We decide to meet up when I get back and see if there is anything worth saving between us. I had put on my best acting hat and try to seem like I've put our past behind us. However I'm just as vengeful now as I was years ago. She's finishing up her last year at University and I make the trip back to the USA.
I meet Lisa at a coffee shop when I arrive.. We spend the entire night together. From her point of view it really looks like we had moved past our differences and what happened. We could actually work things out.
However I'm not moving back obviously like I told her. I am only stay 2 nights. She doesn't know this. After hooking up a few times and spending 2 days together, without mentioning anything to her about me leaving, I pack my things and get back on a plane back to Central America.
I blocked her on all my social media and communication outlets. This time I could only fantasize about what happened to her when I disappeared after she thought I had moved back and supposedly was ready to give our relationship another try. This time however it wasn't as satisfying as my previous plots of revenge.
My drug habit and lifestyle only got worse every year. 3 years later I was hospitalized and almost died because of my extended drug use. I was never sober a full 24 hours after that day that went through that fucking period calendar.
[Looking back]
As much pain as I might have caused her with my vengeful life, my new identity that consumed my old one was so tainted with a dark spirit at heart. I think I honestly did more harm to myself with my actions and led me to down the road where I had no morals anymore. Though I spent the entirety of this story telling everyone of how I kept getting revenge at my X for cheating on me, as satisfying as it was, I wish I would have spent an equal amount of energy healing myself from the incident. If anyone reading this is experiencing the pain that comes with cheating, a good revenge story can bring you some satisfaction but I hope you don't make the same mistake I did. Rather spend MORE time healing yourself from the hurt and moving past it. The revenge wont heal you. It will be a separate journey but could distract you from putting yourself back together.
Luckily I got sober and am sober now 4+ years. I even had another girl friend of 2 years cheat on me before I got sober but this time I didn't take revenge. I spent my time healing. I changed and only focused on myself and that was way more satisfying than the revenge I got on Lisa for cheating on me.
Now I'm married almost 2 years to a woman who is sober and man do I have a good life. I have a dream job and a dream marriage. Thank you everyone who read this. Sorry if it wasn't well written I never write like this but I have never told the full story in detail before and I got a lot out of writing it.
Mostly what I hope to get from this is to share my experiences doing horrible things but feeling an immense satisfying feel from it where its almost addictive. And morphing from generally a good person to a relatively dark evil one.. Obviously people have dark moments but I feel like my personality and psyche has never been the same since that experience. I'm looking forward to any responses to the people willing to read this shit.
[written by commenter] TLDR: OP dated a woman a few years younger than him in college, Lisa. Lisa kept a period tracker and kept when she had unprotected sex, while documenting their sex for gf who had fallen asleep, OP saw she had been having unprotected sex with at least 4 dudes since they had been dating. OPs roommate kicked her out. OP decided to get revenge. This started with fucking all 3 of her relay partners (track team) which eventually led to the team crashing. They also had bfs, so OP used this as fuel to say that women are the problem, not him. At this time OP starts going down the rabbit hole with drugs and alcohol. This continued on for a long time, and OP started keeping an item from women that would be identifiable to Lisa for his plan. He would purposely “target” (own words) girls close to Lisa so drama would be worse, and he would have more ammunition to hurt her. Lisa took a mental health break from depression, and came to OPs house asking for her stuff back. He brought it to her parents and put all the items he had been collecting. She called him crying and he reveled in it. Months later, they run into each other at PT and he convinces her to give it another shot, knowing its a game. Knowingly holds her “hostage,” no guy friends, no parties, no going out, all while cheating. They eventually break up. Years later, OP is contacted by Lisa and says hes moving back to their country for a job. (IRL hes going for a 2 day visit) and basically catfishes her into trying to date him again, they meet up and hang out the whole time. He then packs up and leaves without a word to hurt her again. After this OP goes down a bad road with drugs and alcohol, ends up in the hospital, and has another Gf cheat on him. He did not take revenge on her. OP is now married, and has a good job and has (presumably) been clean. He is also aware of how toxic it all is. I think that’s everything

[This is a long one, there is a TLDR at the bottom]
(This isn't just a story of revenge. This is a story of how revenge hurts both parties)
To this day, a good revenge story gives me a warm bubbly feeling inside. I believe it comes from this college experience years ago when I got revenge on my cheating girlfriend and it felt GOOD. I know I'm not suppose to enjoy it but I can't deny how satisfying it feels. Its probably one of my favorite feelings in the world even though I'm ashamed to admit it. So I decided to write my first post about this because I don't tell the story often. It is so extensive and honestly just makes me look bad.
I'm going to try my best to not paint a picture where my X looks as bad as possible and me as innocent as possible. I want to write this accurately as I can, even if it makes me look bad.
[Bit of context and back story]
At the time of this story, I played division 1 NCAA basketball at a school so I traveled a lot (weekly in different cities and states) and my entire life revolved around this.
During the events of this story I was in the early stages of a horrible drug and alcohol habit. Years after this story I ended up getting sober and joined a program whos name you can find at the front of almost any phonebook. I am sure many people reading this are also sober and will understand how we addicts/alcoholics can be. This story is an effort to explain a character defect that manifested from the events in this story that lead me down a very dark path, however, I don't mean this story to come off in a "self pity" kind of way.
Lastly, I was always a good kid, I was never "troubled". My upbringing was very difficult but I was able to keep an overall kindness in my spirit to other people and almost always "did the right thing" or "took the high road". When it came to dating, I knew people cheated in relationships but at the time of this story I always chalked it up to other people "not doing things the way I did". I never really thought it would happen to me.. I always thought that because I was a "5 star boyfriend" and my "amazing choice" in women, infidelity would never be a part of my dating journey. I was a naïve. I really thought highly of myself and also had a real arrogance like any guy in his early 20s I guess.
[The Build Up]
I was in my Jr year in University I had been single for about a year after me and my high school gf finally broke up after 3 years. I checked that relationship off as my "learning experience" and I now knew what to look for in my next girlfriend. The next woman I chose to have a relationship with I would most likely marry and start my future with. (I know I was young and dumb and thought I knew everything LOL)
I had my eye on this girl at my school [we will call her Lisa]. I saw Lisa around the collegiate athletic facility (the university teams training grounds, and locker rooms). Lisa ran for the track team and was damn good. The various athletic teams often had parties and I knew that the first one I saw her at I would introduce myself and try to chat her up a bit and see where it led.
Soon enough I see Lisa at one of these parties and we pass each other on the stairs. We make eye contact and she smiled at me. I sparked a conversation with her and after going back and forth a bit we exchange numbers. We begin the classic American style of flirting where we constantly just hint things back and forth indirectly. We slowly progressed the relationship in this manner for weeks. Sending texts back and forth hinting that we were interested in each other but also playing it cool to not let the other person know we had a crush on them.
At the time, she was on a break with her current boyfriend who was a popular player on the football team. She ended up leaving him completely to date me. This shoulda been a red flag obviously but remember, I had severe hubris. At the time her leaving him to date me just gave me a superiority complex. I was playing good in sport and if she was willing to leave this guy for me then she will never leave me for another guy.
Lmao I was a fucking idiot.
I cant express how much I was into Lisa. I was addictively attracted to her and had that weird feeling of "I cant believe my crush is actually into me to". I really was so drowned and blinded by my crush on her I missed so many red flags but our relationship began progressing really fast. Because of this I didn't really do a proper inventory on why I liked her so much.
[Fast forward like 8 months later.]
We are together officially. Lisa has her own athlete's dorm room but I was a couple years older than her and was working during the summers full time and part time during school / season and had my own apartment near campus and Lisa was basically living with me. She even would stay there when I was out of town which was like 3 or 4 days of every week because we were in season and the team was flying all over the country. Me and Lisa were deeply in love regardless.
At the end of the season I had planned two massive back to back parties. One was for my teammate's birthday (Friday night) and then my birthday (Saturday night). They just happened to be one day after the other and luckily landed on a Friday and Saturday night. Me and Lisa got drunk Friday night and had some unprotected sex.
Lisa kept a period-tracking calendar app on her phone. She was asleep and I drunkenly remembered she always marked down in her calendar when we had unprotected sex so she knew if she should be worried if she missed her period. She missed her period often because she was an athlete. My inebriated brain thought she should put it in her calendar now because we would forget the next day since we were so fucked up. So I woke her up and said "can you put in that calendar that we had unprotected sex". At this point it was like 5am and we were that 5am kinda drunk where you're mostly just tired. She unlocked her phone and opened the app and before she could even do it she fell back asleep. So I took the phone while it was still unlocked and proceeded to try and figure out how to put it in her calendar myself.
[side note] Through our entire relationship, Lisa went through my computer and phone constantly. She was very insecure and always had her suspicions. I didn't care that she was doing this all the time. She never found anything because I never did shady shit, ever.
Again, looking back at this its an obvious red flag I missed. Remember I thought this girl would never cheat on me.
So this wasn't one of those stories where I went through her phone looking for something and subsequently finding it. In this case I was innocently trying to navigate this damn period calendar while I was drunk and I was not suspicious at all.
When I looked at the period-calendar app on Lisa's phone, I saw all kinds of little markers on different days of each month. Each marker was a different color so I opened one to see what the color coding meant. I saw that red was obviously symbolling her period and then there was also black markers that showed when she had unprotected sex.
........This is when my heart sank into my stomach......
This fucking calendar was PEPPERED with black markers. It looked like a checker board with only a hand full of red pieces left and ALL the fucking black ones..... There was black markers on dates that I was in a different city playing basketball.... I proceeded to open all of black markers going back for our entire relationship. We did not have unprotected sex very often. MAYBE once or twice a month. She had written the names of the guys she had unprotected sex with in the notes section of the black markers. There was a total of 4 guys through out the entirety of our relationship that she allowed to penetrate her raw. Some months there was almost a dozens of those fucking black markers. Sometimes there was TWO in one day! Looking back on this I wonder if there were more unlisted men that I didn't see because she clearly only kept track of the guys and times she had UNPROTECTED sex.
In almost every story I hear of infidelity, it involves the discovery of text messages, being informed by a friend, or the classic coming home early and catching your partner red handed.
I, on the other hand, discovered a fucking well documented LEDGER of almost every time she cheated and had unprotected sex.
Amongst the 4 guys I discovered, one of them was her X that she originally left to date me. Cheating on me with him was a common occurrence. There was some other unkown guy she was also clearly sleeping with him regularly. The last 2 fellas looked to be just a one time thing but again like I said these markers were just the times she had sex without a condom. So who knows what the true story was there.
I sobered up real quick. I proceeded to look through Lisa's texts and calls and found nothing. However, at the time Android phones had a folder where you can see deleted texts but not the contents of the messages. She had THOUSANDS of deleted texts and calls but I couldn't see what they said but I saw the numbers and did a quick Facebook search and matched one with her X in addition to something like half a dozen other random dudes. The worst part was I found TWO of my teammates... one guy I was actually pretty close with.
I just put the phone down after a few minutes. The evidence was overwhelming. The more it seemed to look at the phone the more my insides began to hurt.
I felt so defeated. I cant fully describe the feeling but I'm sure anyone reading this that caught a significant other cheating knows what I'm talking about. I felt so stupid for trusting her and having no suspicions of her.
I couldn't stop thinking about how I regretted all the times that I had an "opportunity" to cheat and remained faithful to Lisa. I felt like and idiot for not cheating her when I could have. My loyalty felt like a waste. I know it sounds ridiculous and irrelevant to the fact that she was unfaithful. I think I obsessed over that because if I had cheated as well I wouldn't have hurt so much in that moment. All I could think about was about how much I was hurt. I would do anything to not feel the pain and embarrassment anymore.
[Question] Am I the only one who thought this way after catching their partner cheating? I'm curious about this.
I proceeded to leave my apartment and go for a long walk. I had never felt the emotions that were coming up and didn't know how to process them. My ego felt like it was literally dismantled in front of me. I wasn't sure what to do and I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. My sadness quickly turned to anger. I knew I was gunna get my revenge I just didn't know how yet.
I was SEETHING with rage and wanted make sure she never recovered from this.
My roommate/teammate and best friend at the who was sleeping on the couch in my living room [we will call him Bono] (an eastern European kid who stood 7 foot tall and was as Russian in demeanor as it you can imagine. He also had an equally ridiculous RL name hence: Bono) well, Bono called me shortly after I started my walk. I answered and he asked where I was. I asked him to keep this between us, and told him what happened. He stays on the phone and goes into my room and I hear him in his Russian accent yell at her "yo bitch, you cheated on OP?" Then I faintly hear her inaudibly say something in the background and him yelling at her to get out of the apartment. After hearing some scuffling Bono gets back on the line and says "yo! she gone, come back and lets talk"
I head back home and me and Bono go over what had happened. Things don't get sappy because we are both complete alpha males who both come from cultures where "men don't cry" and neither of us really knew what to say or do in this situation. He makes his best attempt to comfort me and says: "tonight is your birthday, we gunna get fucked up and find you some sluts. Fuck her! I never liked her anyway"
.... oh ya, this day was my birthday... forgot about that part ...
Me and Bono go out for breakfast. I am still a little drunk. My phone is blowing up with calls and texts from Lisa. I tell her I saw everything on her phone and I cant stand to speak with her or look at her. She keeps trying to convince me to let her come to my birthday party and I make it clear I don't want her there. She clearly was concerned about exactly what Bono suggested to me earlier when me and him chatted.
Lisa's entire reputation and popularity revolved around the fact that she was dating me. I think most people didn't like her in the first place but put up with her because we were together. She knew that if I acted single at my birthday party and she didn't show up everyone would know something was askew. I think Lisa was more worried about being embarrassed than our relationship.
I don't remember much of what happened that night. But one of my friends sent me a little package for my birthday from California filled with some really good weed, hash, moonrocks, some pills and "the devil's dandruff" and I proceeded to do a glorious swan dive into an intoxicated oblivion.
All I remember is sitting on my chair at the pregame for my party. There was two girls sitting on the arms of the chair and I still have a photo of that moment and I remember it vividly. We were preparing to head out. I had a few tables downtown at a popular nightclub. The booze and drugs were the only thing that made me feel normal. I had my sun glasses on and clearly had that happy loaded grin on my face. The longer you look at the photo of me on that chair, you can tell I'm hiding a huge amount of hurt.
Sitting on that chair, the cocktail of drugs start to take effect. This was the first time I ever used substances not to "party" but to feel better. To make me feel normal.
I remember thinking: "I want to feel this way for the rest of my life. I am never going to hurt like that ever again. With drugs, I have control and no one can hurt me again." Oh how ironic that turns out to be years down the line.
I told my teammates and friends that me and Lisa were done when they asked why she wasn't at the party. I didn't tell them why though. I also didn't show them that I was affected by it in anyway and just played it cool. I tried to focus everyone on the party ahead of us.
[The Revenge]
So this is one of those revenge stories where it was only half planned. I knew I wanted to get revenge on Lisa for hurting me so much. But I kind of just improvised as opportunities came up.
My original kind spirit had died at my birthday on that chair. All my morals went out the window. I never cheated in relationships therefore I believed I would never get cheated on. I realize now how dumb that is but that's what I thought at the time.
I didn't care what collateral damage I caused as long as my mission to hurt Lisa as much as possible was accomplished. So continued every day of my life with this new selfish mindset.
I was sitting at my computer later that next week skimming Facebook when I saw the profile of one of her track teammates on my feed. That's when I had my first vengeful idea. I decided I was going to attempt to get her teammates to bite the bait that I was about to cast out into the water. Though, I didn't have proof she hooked up with my teammates, she was clearly trying to hide conversations between them. So I was going to see how many people who are close to here I could "passionately hug". Luckily I had more options than she had when cheating on me. A women's track team is much larger than a men's basketball team. Also much better looking ;)
Lisa's teammate I originally spotted on my Facebook had a boyfriend but I thought: "clearly everyone cheats, lets see if its true". I proceed to do the little flirty social media dance with her. You know, the one where I like a couple of her photos, she likes a couple of mine back. I shoot her a message and BAM! shes at my house in my bed about a week later. I proceed to do something similar to other teammates of hers. All on her 4x4 relay team coincidentally.
2 of the 3 girls I "passionately hugged" had boyfriends and subsequently cheated on them with me which gave me some real mixed emotions. It stroked my broken ego and also made me bitter and sad. Giving me one of those "women aint shit! none of them are loyal" attitudes.
This is such a typical story of while fighting monsters I became a monster.
This actually became my go-to strategy because it accomplished two things in my fucked up mind. It exposed a cheater but more importantly if they were willing to cheat on their boyfriends they would:
A] be more secretive about it which meant the drama that would ensue when it came out would be elevated and
B] it made me feel better about Lisa cheating because it proved it wasn't me that was the problem. It was women that were the problem. (I know its fucked up but that's what I thought back then.)
I started to collect something from every girl that I hooked up with, like a bra, a pair of panties, or some jewelry etc.. (not for some creepy reason, but this is important later and was a part of my plan) Sometimes I didn't even have to try. One girl left a pair of very distinguishable shoes. I knew Lisa would know who's shoes they were. They belonged to the girl that Lisa's X boyfriend rebounded with after Lisa and him broke up which highly upset her because it was her friend. Now it would upset her more because that same girl slept with both of her X boyfriends. I especially tried to collect items if it was something that I knew Lisa could distinguish like a sweater from the women's track team with her teammates name on it. After some time I had collected a boatload of shit.
After a couple months or so, one of the Lisa's teammate's boyfriends found out about me and his girlfriend and it started a big beautiful dramatic explosion of series of events with her and her teammates. This led to all of them finding out about one another's promiscuity. The drama was MASSIVE. Even their coaches had to get involved it got so bad.
This made me feel so powerful in such and evil yet satisfying way. I fell in love with the destruction I was causing. (The most awesome part about all of it was that same week, the Athletics PR team had put massive posters of me all over campus promoting the next game. They were EVERYWHERE. Some of the posters took up the entire side of buildings) So Lisa and her friends had to see me all over campus every day while this drama was erupting all around them. I felt like a triumphant dictator. It was glorious and pathetic at the same time.
Their coach even proceeded to have a "serious" meeting with the compliance department and my team's coaches. My coaches literally laughed at her saying "this seems like and internal issue, but OP hasn't done anything illegal or broken any school policy so there is nothing we can do". This infuriated the women's track coach. Their team had fallen apart. Their national ranking began to plummet. Then Lisa's coach even got in trouble for being caught tearing down some of the smaller posters of me on campus in raging temper tantrum.
I loved all of it.
I continued to add fuel to the fire. Posting photos of me with girls, smiling, being happy every chance I could on Facebook and Instagram. But under it all, I was bitter. I was so deep into my new mindset I had already forgotten the kind hearted naïve kid I use to be. I hated my old self because I let some girl emasculate me. I was so full of self pity looking back it, its depressing. No one really knew though because I played the cool guy attitude in front of people.
There was even a girl on campus on one of the sports teams who claimed that she was pregnant with my kid after I pretended to like her the same way I did with all of the other girls on Lisa's team and soon as we "passionately hugged" I moved on. Its a long story, but it turned out she wasn't pregnant but the news or "press" that came from that further dug the knife deeper into Lisa's side. I left a trail of women I deceived and relationships I destroyed. I feel bad now but at the time I didn't care because they were equally at fault in my eyes since they were cheating on their boyfriends or sleeping with their friends X.
Quickly, girls became weary of me. Plus I was running out of "potential targets" (Fuck I was an awful human being then the way I was thinking) and I was going after girls that weren't even friends or on the track team with Lisa but were just around her in daily life. For example her classmates and as well as her own family. I even flirted with her sister who was married with a kid and I almost succeeded. She was down but her and Lisa's dad found out about it and stepped in and put a stop it all before we could do anything. Her sister was ostracized as the news spread within the family.
I wanted Lisa to know I was everywhere and constantly remind her how she fucked up. In my eyes this was all her fault and she unleashed this fury of chaos upon herself. She should never have fucked with me like that.
Lisa had to take an extended medical leave because of her depression and mental health issues she was experiencing from the whole situation. She was becoming suicidal. She even had to go on medication and lost TONS of weight. She began to look extremely unhealthy. The whole mess was torturing her and the more she hurt the better I felt. At this point I had already inflicted more damage than she did to me but I had become addicted to the feeling of power... I spent 0 time processing my own emotions or moving on from what happened. All I wanted was more revenge and I couldn't stop.
After weeks of ignoring Lisa's texts and calls she finally gets a hold of me by showing up to my apartment unannounced late at night. She was there to pick up some stuff she left from when she lived there to take home. She was actually a local and her parents lived close by. (She was still on her medical leave and no longer staying on campus but rather with her parents) I told her I would bring her stuff to her parents house that weekend but I couldn't let her in because I had "company". Which I did but it wasn't one of her teammates or friends unfortunately.
I then to take all the items I had collected from all the girls over the weeks. There was probably like 8 or 9 things from different girls including her teammates and threw their belongings in along with Lisa's stuff into big black trash bags. I took the bags to her house and then called Lisa's dad. I told him I left her stuff on his porch and to inform his demon daughter. Me and Lisa's dad actually really got along and he even took my side after Lisa and I broke up. But after all these events transpired he obviously had a negative opinion of me.
15 minutes after I get off the phone with her Lisa's dad, I get a call from Lisa. I answer because I want to hear her reaction to having all these other girls shit mixed in with hers. She was sobbing uncontrollably. It sounded like that half crying half mumbling thing people do when they are hysterical. She wasn't even angry, just desperately begging me to point to stop my tyranny.
I just smiled and baked in the glory of hearing her hurt. I responded "why were their other guys in our relationship? you mixed them into our relationship like I mixed other girls shit into your shit. Its perfect little ironic metaphor". I thought it sounded cool at the time and was real proud of myself. (*facepalm*)
I later found out from one of Lisa's friends (who knew she was cheating on me during our relationship) that Lisa was convinced I WAS THE ONE cheating on her because "I was always out of town." This doesn't make sense since I was out of town because of basketball, a very legit excuse. Not just randomly on my own accord. You could literally see my schedule on the school's website. I kept in contact with her constantly when I was gone but obviously when I had practice or team meetings I couldn't be on my phone. But she didn't have the logic in her brain to figure this out I guess. I assume its just an excuse she made to protect her insecurities about the whole fiasco or to keep face with people who knew she was cheating.
[months go by]
Lisa comes back to school from her medical leave and we bump into each other at the physical therapy center in our athlete facility building. I see this as yet another opportunity. It had been a while since I did something that hurt her and I was still hungry for more vengeance. I proceed to pretend like I want to rekindle things with her. She is cautious at first but eventually bites after about a week. We start to mend our "relationship". We proceed for about a month but I wouldn't call this a relationship. I forbid her to have any male friends nor is she allowed to go out and party with her girlfriends. I also need full access to all her accounts and her location at all times. It was more like a hostage situation. It gave me a sense of control.
Meanwhile I'm not being faithful at all. This was my plan all along. Finally, she finds out about me sleeping with a girl in one of her classes and we have a nasty "breakup". I told her that she literally knows what it felt like to be me when we last dated. Yet again, I felt Triumphant. It was just another chance to hurt her and I did.
[After this we don't speak for YEARS.]
I graduate university and move to Central America. She messages me while I'm there about a year after I moved and about 2 years after we last spoke. At this point my life has become that of a real degenerate. I was doing copious amounts of drugs on a daily basis and about 75% of my life was involved in some sort of illegal or nefarious activities. But I still blame her for me becoming the dark soul that I was and taking no responsibility for bitter immoral nature. I hadn't had another relationship since her and always had trouble because I couldn't trust a women in any capacity anymore. Even after years had passed, I saw this instance of her messaging me as yet another opportunity to hurt her.
We begin to talk as friends and even getting flirty with each other over Facebook messenger. Mind you there is literally many countries, states and an ocean between us at this point. I was planning a trip back to my old university to visit some friends. However I told her was different: I explained to her I was moving back to the city for a new job I was just offered. We decide to meet up when I get back and see if there is anything worth saving between us. I had put on my best acting hat and try to seem like I've put our past behind us. However I'm just as vengeful now as I was years ago. She's finishing up her last year at University and I make the trip back to the USA.
I meet Lisa at a coffee shop when I arrive.. We spend the entire night together. From her point of view it really looks like we had moved past our differences and what happened. We could actually work things out.
However I'm not moving back obviously like I told her. I am only stay 2 nights. She doesn't know this. After hooking up a few times and spending 2 days together, without mentioning anything to her about me leaving, I pack my things and get back on a plane back to Central America.
I blocked her on all my social media and communication outlets. This time I could only fantasize about what happened to her when I disappeared after she thought I had moved back and supposedly was ready to give our relationship another try. This time however it wasn't as satisfying as my previous plots of revenge.
My drug habit and lifestyle only got worse every year. 3 years later I was hospitalized and almost died because of my extended drug use. I was never sober a full 24 hours after that day that went through that fucking period calendar.
[Looking back]
As much pain as I might have caused her with my vengeful life, my new identity that consumed my old one was so tainted with a dark spirit at heart. I think I honestly did more harm to myself with my actions and led me to down the road where I had no morals anymore. Though I spent the entirety of this story telling everyone of how I kept getting revenge at my X for cheating on me, as satisfying as it was, I wish I would have spent an equal amount of energy healing myself from the incident. If anyone reading this is experiencing the pain that comes with cheating, a good revenge story can bring you some satisfaction but I hope you don't make the same mistake I did. Rather spend MORE time healing yourself from the hurt and moving past it. The revenge wont heal you. It will be a separate journey but could distract you from putting yourself back together.
Luckily I got sober and am sober now 4+ years. I even had another girl friend of 2 years cheat on me before I got sober but this time I didn't take revenge. I spent my time healing. I changed and only focused on myself and that was way more satisfying than the revenge I got on Lisa for cheating on me.
Now I'm married almost 2 years to a woman who is sober and man do I have a good life. I have a dream job and a dream marriage. Thank you everyone who read this. Sorry if it wasn't well written I never write like this but I have never told the full story in detail before and I got a lot out of writing it.
Mostly what I hope to get from this is to share my experiences doing horrible things but feeling an immense satisfying feel from it where its almost addictive. And morphing from generally a good person to a relatively dark evil one.. Obviously people have dark moments but I feel like my personality and psyche has never been the same since that experience. I'm looking forward to any responses to the people willing to read this shit.
[written by commenter] TLDR: OP dated a woman a few years younger than him in college, Lisa. Lisa kept a period tracker and kept when she had unprotected sex, while documenting their sex for gf who had fallen asleep, OP saw she had been having unprotected sex with at least 4 dudes since they had been dating. OPs roommate kicked her out. OP decided to get revenge. This started with fucking all 3 of her relay partners (track team) which eventually led to the team crashing. They also had bfs, so OP used this as fuel to say that women are the problem, not him. At this time OP starts going down the rabbit hole with drugs and alcohol. This continued on for a long time, and OP started keeping an item from women that would be identifiable to Lisa for his plan. He would purposely “target” (own words) girls close to Lisa so drama would be worse, and he would have more ammunition to hurt her. Lisa took a mental health break from depression, and came to OPs house asking for her stuff back. He brought it to her parents and put all the items he had been collecting. She called him crying and he reveled in it. Months later, they run into each other at PT and he convinces her to give it another shot, knowing its a game. Knowingly holds her “hostage,” no guy friends, no parties, no going out, all while cheating. They eventually break up. Years later, OP is contacted by Lisa and says hes moving back to their country for a job. (IRL hes going for a 2 day visit) and basically catfishes her into trying to date him again, they meet up and hang out the whole time. He then packs up and leaves without a word to hurt her again. After this OP goes down a bad road with drugs and alcohol, ends up in the hospital, and has another Gf cheat on him. He did not take revenge on her. OP is now married, and has a good job and has (presumably) been clean. He is also aware of how toxic it all is. I think that’s everything

Hey all...figured I'd share for anyone who may be interested in reading in the hours leading up to the game. The stuff posted below was originally written as part of an article and not a Reddit post so it's a bit lengthy.
EDIT: Full article is up and can be read on the Boiler In Texas site.
https://www.boilerintexas.com/boiler-basketball-articles/2020-mbb-at-iowa-preview
I'll be contributing a few write-ups and opinion pieces for Boilermaker basketball over the course of the season and highly recommend the site if you're a Purdue sports fan. I'll leave the excerpt below for those who prefer to read directly on Reddit.

Solid Play from the 4 Position

It felt like Purdue had Iowa’s number last year and Evan Boudreaux had a big part in that. In the two times the teams squared up, the graduate transfer Senior averaged 16 points on 11/21 shooting from the floor and 6/10 from 3. He also averaged 11 rebounds with a monster 14 rebound outing in the first matchup that included an insane 7 offensive rebounds. Examining the rest of the stat sheet shows 5 assists, 2 steals, and a block to 4 fouls and only ONE turnover between both games. To further emphasize how impressive Boudreaux’s performances were against Iowa, let’s compare these averages to his season’s.
​

Evan Boudreaux	VS. Iowa	Season
Points	16	5.4
FG%/3P%	52.4/60	39.7/30.6
Rebounds (Off.)	11 (4)	4.6 (1.6)
Assists	2.5	0.7
Blocks	0.5	0.1
Turnovers	0.5	0.7
Minutes	29.5	17

As impressive as his outings were, you may be wondering why I am focusing on a player who is no longer on Purdue’s roster in advance of a matchup tonight. To put it simply, it’s because I see a lot of the same opportunities at the 4 spot this year when reviewing the film on Iowa and looking at their roster while looking back at our own. As stated earlier, this is an Iowa team that brings back a ton of key players. Much like last year, Iowa has opted (so far) to feature a lineup that surrounds star Luka Garza with 4 versatile guards that are capable of threatening from deep. The Hawkeyes relied primarily on an experienced big in Ryan Kreiner to fill in the ~8 minutes/game Garza wasn’t on the floor last season as well as to provide size and depth in matchups that called for a larger lineup. Iowa struggled mightily to contain Boudreaux while also keeping tabs on Trevion Williams or the 7’3” Haarms. Their typical ‘smaller’ lineup couldn’t keep Boudreaux off the glass or take advantage on the other end of the floor. The 6’10 Kreiner (who averaged 21 minutes in these two games) couldn’t hang with Williams or Haarms defensively, being on the wrong end of a few and-1 calls trying to guard either of them 1-on-1, and didn’t do that much better in keeping Boudreaux off the offensive glass.
This year is looking like more of the same as they roll out with virtually the same exact starting lineup as last year. The Hawkeyes welcome back Senior guard Jordan Bohanon who returns from season-ending hip surgery that cut his last season to only 10 games (missed both of the matchups vs. Purdue) while his replacement last year in Joe Toussaint now comes off the bench leading the non-starting guards in minutes and points. In place of Kreiner is a bit of committee featuring freshmen Keegan Murray and Patrick McCaffery while being headed by 6’11” Sophomore Jack Nunge. I expect Painter to continue rolling out with a starting lineup that slots Mason Gillis alongside Trevion Williams in the frontcourt with Aaron Wheeler playing anywhere between 16-24 minutes whenever Gillis isn’t on the floor. Both Gillis and Wheeler will be dangerous crashing the glass against Iowa’s smaller lineup and I like their odds against the big men coming off the bench for Iowa. Nunge is more versatile than Kreiner and a notable threat on the offensive end, averaging double figure points and nearly 4 offensive rebounds in under 20 minutes of action per game this year. That said, I’ll take our guys over the Freshmen with limited experiences against strong opponents and think that our centers will force their share of double teams in the paint to open up the weak side for easy looks and prime offensive rebounding position.
In my opinion, the big question mark this game is whether or not the Boilers can handle the smaller Hawkeyes lineup on defense and this really starts with the 4 position. Last year, we were able to bring the double team on Garza and rotate adequately across the board to prevent many wide-open looks elsewhere. A big key to our success was not only solid play by Boudreaux but a lineup that featured elite defender Nojel Eastern, senior transfer Jahaad Proctor who rarely lapsed on defense, and a legit rim protector in Haarms to shore up instances of dribble penetration. The Miami and Notre Dame games exposed some serious holes in our perimeter defense with Miami seemingly driving at will in the 2nd half and Notre Dame shooting 39% from behind the arc en route to sinking 16 3’s despite missing several wide-open looks. In short, it is absolutely crucial that the Boilermakers put up a strong, disciplined performance defensively as Iowa is really the first team we have faced that can beat us with both the 3 point shot and dribble-drive if our rotations off double teams in the post and general perimeter defense is lacking.

Contain Their Offense

In case it wasn’t plainly obvious that this Iowa team is an offensive juggernaut, here are some stats. According to KenPom, Iowa leads D1 in adjusted offensive efficiency so far this season averaging 119.5 points per 100 possessions. Their 98.7 points/game and 22.9 assists/game are good for 2nd and 1st respectively in the league, and their FG% of 50.3% is good for top ~30 overall and fringe top 10 when only considering major conference schools. To round out this stellar resume, the Hawkeyes also shoot a very respectable 37.4% from deep even after a cold 4-for-22 performance in their last match against Gonzaga. Oh, I also forgot to mention their insanely low turnover rate, coughing the ball up on just 12.7% of offensive possessions (4th best in D1). A big part of this stems from Luka Garza and what he contributes himself and indirectly by freeing up his teammates.
At the time of writing this, I am seeing a few outlets that are covering this game assert that one of the important ‘keys’ to a Purdue victory is being able to find an answer to Garza. Overall, this is a take I actually disagree with. In his two games this year against ranked opponents, Garza has averaged 23 points/game on 50% shooting overall. When examining his performance in the two quality Purdue wins last year, we see the big man put up 26 points both times on a combined 55.9% from the floor whereas the rest of his team shot under 33%. In summary, the longer and more experienced frontcourts of UNC and Gonzaga couldn’t effectively shut down Garza and a Purdue team with notably better interior (and overall for that matter) defense couldn’t do it either last year. Looking at the 3 Iowa losses in these 4 games, the common denominator has been limiting the rest of the team. As stated before, Iowa shot a paltry 18.2% (4/22) from behind the arc as a team against Gonzaga. I already mentioned how the team outside of Garza shot <33% from the floor in the two losses against Purdue last season, but I’ll tack on that the Hawkeyes only managed to convert on ~25% of their shots from deep in those games as well (3-9 for Garza). While the clear Big 10 PoTY candidate and arguable frontrunner for national PoTY should merit plenty of attention, it’s clear to me that the key to victory here is containing everyone in an Iowa jersey whose name isn’t Luka Garza.
This will be easier said than done of course. In the loss to the #1 Zags, a decent chunk of Iowa’s cold shooting from 3 came off of quality looks. When you consider the fact that they only shot 14-26 from the line as a team, it feels like the shooting woes this game stemmed more from the Hawkeyes having an ‘off night’ as opposed to anything Gonzaga did defensively. Last year, we had the benefit of two of the best defenders in the conference in Nojel Eastern and Matt Haarms to anchor a Boilermaker squad that had plenty of experienced upperclassmen that were generally sound and mistake-averse defensively. Eastern was primarily tasked with guarding second leading scorer Joe Wieskamp. Wieskamp, who averaged 14 points/game his Sophomore year, was held to just 8 and 10 points in the two losses against the Boilers with just 1-7 shooting from behind the arc and 5 turnovers compared to his season average of 1.6. Wieskamp is once again the second option behind Garza, averaging 15.9 points on a very efficient 54.2% from the floor and 46.9% from 3. We do not have a Nojel Eastern to clamp down on him this time around and to be honest... we don’t really have a clear matchup for him that doesn’t pose it’s own set of issues. As a 6-6, 220 guard who has averaged over 6 boards a game and is more than capable of crashing the lane for offensive rebounds, I don’t see any of our guards outside of Stefanovic being ideal. Doing this likely means putting Gillis against a much faster guard at several points of the game, and I don’t love the idea of Gillis or Wheeler being tasked with guarding Wieskamp directly for obvious reasons. Outside of this particular assignment, Iowa still features several guards that are more than capable of knocking down an open shot. C.J. Fredrick is shooting 52.2% from deep this year, Joe Toussaint and Connor McCaffery are not volume shooters from 3 but are more than capable of sinking shots in catch-and-shoot situations, and senior Jordan Bohannon is far better from behind the arc than his current 28.3% from that range on the season would indicate. Oh, did I mention Garza is coming in shooting 61.9% here on 3 attempts per game? This will be a game that has a lot of similarities to Notre Dame in that the Hawkeyes will be able to spread the floor and put as many as 5 guys on the floor that can threaten from 3-point range. The difference here is that Iowa also brings nearly 30 points a game in the form of the best offensive center in the NCAA to provide a complimentary interior threat. Iowa will be a daunting challenge for the young Boilermakers squad on defense to say the very least. While it is clear that this will have to be a team-wide effort, I would lean on our Juniors to provide high quality, fundamentally-sound defense and look for high energy, physical play in bursts while limiting turnovers and silly fouls from our younger guys coming off the bench.

Come Out Swinging and Crash the Glass

Purdue wasn’t (and still isn’t) a team known for pushing the ball and leaning heavily on a fast break offense last year. We were and are a team that favors setting up different variations of Painter’s primary “4 out, 1 in” motion offense and working to find quality shots. We may typically rank near the bottom in offensive pace, but this doesn’t mean that we are a team that doesn’t play heavily on momentum. In the first meeting last season against then-ranked #17 Iowa, Purdue went from surrendering a Garza jumper on the first possession to score 17 unanswered points before coach Fran McCaffery opted to burn a much needed timeout just 4 minutes into the game. His Iowa squad gradually recovered but was never really close after this initial run, going on to finish the half down 25 and eventually lose by 36. Playing at a packed Mackey at a time where an inconsistent Purdue squad desperately needed this ranked win to avoid falling out of relevance halfway through the year definitely helped as the Boilers came out of the gates sprinting and giving it 110%. The 17-0 run over roughly three and a half minutes of play saw consecutive high-effort steals from big men Boudreaux and Williams and several offensive rebounds each from Eastern and Boudreaux that more or less resulted entirely from hustle and effort.
Perhaps the most discouraging moments during this early run for Iowa and their fans was when Trevion Williams missed an and-1 free throw after a made layup only to have Eastern snag the rebound over the undersized guard trying to box him out. Eric Hunter Jr. would proceed to miss the kick-out 3, and several Purdue players would scramble and end up on the ground to recover the miss. A Sasha 3 would also miss a short while later, and Eastern would again sprint for the basket and this time snag the rebound in stride, smoothly "outletting" to Hunter again on a kick out. This time Hunter would sink the 3 to make the lead 10-2, capping off what ended up being a 5 point play that saw 3 Purdue offensive rebounds. The two very next Purdue possessions saw a Boudreaux put back on a missed 3-pointer and then Eastern snagging yet another offensive rebound on a missed 3 and immediately finding an open teammate on the wing for another try (this time Stefanovic, who would bury it as the crowd went absolutely wild). The final headlines for this game were all variations of “Boilermakers go hot from 3 in win!”, but I felt the untold story was the insane level of energy we came out with to arguably put the game out of reach mentally in mere minutes. In the aforementioned stretch, Purdue technically missed 6 out of 8 attempts from 3 but walked away with points on every possession because of their offensive rebounding and hustle.
While our 2020-2021 squad has had its share of lapses on both ends of the court, we have certainly not been lacking in spirit with a ton of high effort plays from all our guys resulting in many instances of huge momentum swings in our favor. Going on the road to play in Iowa City instead of Mackey isn’t ideal, but the lack of crowd should hopefully mitigate the normal home court advantage. An Iowa squad that returns a vast majority of its key players from last year will likely come out hungry looking for revenge, so it is important that the Boilers rival it with their own energy coming out of the gates. The recent win over Notre Dame gives me a lot of confidence that this team can weather rallies from opponents and answer with runs of their own and an early lead on this tough Iowa team would put us in a great spot.

Avoid Unforced Turnovers

I’ve spent enough time talking about the past 3 topics, so I’ll try to keep this last one brief. If the Purdue squad that only turned it over 6 times against Notre Dame shows up, we’ll probably win. If the version that turned it over 22 times against Clemson, 19 times against Indiana St., and 14 times against Miami (with many of them being at key moments in the 2nd half collapse) shows up instead, the question will be not if we lose but how much we lose by. The good news is that Iowa isn’t a team that’s known for defensive prowess. They do a phenomenal job taking care of the ball themselves and key piece Luka Garza is very good at avoiding fouling for how much he is on the floor. Their guards may not be the ball-hawks of Clemson, but they’re more capable and aggressive than Notre Dame’s. The key here will be to have us continue to run the ball through Juniors Eric Hunter and Sasha Stefanovic and lean on Trevion Williams to both produce points himself or open up the floor for everyone else. Hunter in particular seems to have rebounded from some rust stemming from missed time due to an early injury while Stefanovic continues to show the same sound, fundamental play with a knack for great lob passes and pick-and-roll feeds that his predecessors Mathias and Cline were known for as well. Purdue needs to keep it simple and not beat themselves in a matchup against a team that is as good as any at making use of any extra/free possessions we hand them.

The college basketball season continues to march on as many teams across the country continue to kick off their conference schedule with many other teams starting to end their non-conference slates.
The Thursday Night college hoops slate looks to be the lightest schedule of a loaded week of games, but despite the smaller slate of action, there are still enticing games to jump in on.
Here are the plays I am backing tonight, including a pick from tonight’s Big 12 heavyweight matchup between 5th ranked Kansas and 14th ranked Texas Tech.

#5 Kansas at #14 Texas Tech

Spread: Texas Tech -3.5 Total: O/U 135.5 Time/TV: 7:00 PM ET, ESPN
The game of the evening takes us to Lubbock, Texas where 5th ranked Kansas meets 14th ranked Texas Tech in the Big 12 conference opener for both schools. Each team enters tonight’s contest with matching 6-1 records, with the Jayhawks playing the tougher schedule to date.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk has rattled off six straight wins after their opening loss to #1 Gonzaga, headlined by victories over #9 Creighton and a Kentucky team still finding their way, while Texas Tech lost their lone test of the season 64-53 to then #17 Houston and has wins over teams with a combined 9-20 mark to begin the new year.
While each team enters tonight’s game boasting offenses averaging 75 points per contest, the two teams are likely to play at a much slower pace tonight and defense will almost surely be the focal point of each team.
Texas Tech enters tonight’s Big 12 opener with the best defensive unit in the country, and Chris Beard’s crew has landed in the Top 10 for defensive efficiency in each of his four seasons in Lubbock. Their defensive numbers are downright beautiful through the first seven games of the schedule, as the Red Raiders are forcing turnovers on 30% of their opponent’s possessions and are holding teams to just 25% shooting from downtown. The Jayhawks are not lacking for defense either. So far this season they stake claim to the 6th overall defensive unit in college basketball and have held their opponents to just 29% shooting from three-point range.
This has all the makings of an all-out slugfest tonight and what else would you expect from two of the best teams in college basketball?

Kansas Players to Know

While Kansas lost a lot of talent when it watched Devon Dotson and Udoka Azubuike leave for the NBA, Bill Self has once again restocked his cupboard of talent this time with highly-touted freshman Jalen Wilson.
Wilson leads the Jayhawks in scoring with 15.3 points per contest and is shooting the three-ball at a 38 percent clip. Junior Ochai Agbaji (14.1 ppg, 46% 3PM) and Christian Braun (11.9 ppg, 44.4% 3PM) give Self even more range from outside, while 6-10 junior David McCormack is Kansas’ best rim protector and fourth Kansas starter currently averaging double digits in scoring at just over 10 points per game.
The most important player this evening, however, is likely to be that of senior Marcus Garrett. While Garrett is not the most dangerous scoring threat on the floor (8.6 ppg), he is Self’s best perimeter defender and a complete pest for the opposition to deal with.
Why will he be so important? Well, that’s a wonderful segue into the next section!

Texas Tech Players to Know

The Red Raiders’ best player of the young season has been that of former Georgetown product Mac McClung (14.1 ppg, 33.3% 3PM). McClung is the catalyst for the entire Texas Tech offensive attack, and how he’s able to handle the relentless defense from Marcus Garrett will tell us a lot of how this matchup figures to go.
If Garrett can lock down McClung in the same manner he’s locked down many other guards across college basketball, the onus to score will fall on the shoulders of sophomore Terrance Shannon (11.8 ppg) and junior Kyler Edwards (11.3 ppg, 38% 3PM).
Edwards is currently the teams’ most consistent shooter from long range, but collectively Texas Tech is a very poor outside shooting team (35% 3PM, 104th overall). And they’ve been poor against teams that they are noticeably far inferior to the talent Beard has on the floor.
The Red Raiders are also a smaller team, with no one in Texas Tech’s regular rotation being taller than 6-8 (Beard has a 7-1 freshman center who has only seen action in garbage time), but Kansas also has a roster comprised mostly of smaller players so their disadvantage in the frontcourt will not be as pronounced in this matchup as it could be further down the road.

Kansas-Texas Tech Prediction & Best Bet

With Baylor looking like the clear favorite to win the Big 12, this matchup will go a long way towards figuring out who the second-best team in the conference is. Both Kansas and Texas Tech should reside in the Top 15 of the polls for the majority of the season, and each team will once again be a very difficult out in March.
Tonight, however, is a total toss-up in terms of who will come out victorious. If I had to pick a winner I would lean with the oddsmakers here and take Texas Tech as home favorites, but I feel like the temperature of this game screams “under” as Texas Tech’s smothering defense should slow down the Jayhawks bevy of outside shooters, while Kansas’ tough perimeter defense will make offense for the Red Raiders hard to come by.
I will be taking the under and looking for windows to bet the game live. If you love defensive basketball, this will be the matchup for you.
Prediction: Texas Tech 68, Kansas 64 Best Bet: UNDER 135.5

#9 Creighton at St. John’s

Spread: Creighton -6.5 Total: O/U 157.5 Time/TV: 7:00 PM ET, FS1
If two Big 12 teams shooting sub 40% percent on the evening isn’t your thing, the Big East has a game for you.
9th ranked Creighton (4-2 overall, 0-1 Big East) looks to bounce back from an 89-84 home loss to Marquette when it pays a visit to conference foe St. John’s (5-3 overall, 0-2 Big East) tonight.
The Red Storm are also looking to bounce back from a recent skid, as they have dropped their first two conference games of the season, most recently a 97-94 OT loss to Georgetown this past Sunday.
The scoreboard should light up all evening as St. John’s plays at a blistering pace (14th overall tempo in the country per KenPom) under coach Mike Anderson, while Creighton has the 5th most efficient offense in college basketball, shoots nearly 60 percent from the floor and is averaging 85 points per game.
Neither team figures to play much defense tonight, hence why the total is pushing the 160 range, but that should keep the game entertaining, to say the least.

Creighton Players to Know

As we’ve discussed at length in recent pieces highlighting Creighton, the Bluejays have a treasure trove of three-point shooters that they unleash on their opposition seemingly from start to finish.
Greg McDermott’s Bluejays have five players averaging double-figures in scoring and all five players can shoot the three, each shooting better than 34% from distance. The catalyst of their offensive attack falls on the shoulders of senior guards Denzel Mahoney (16.2 ppg, 42.1% 3PM) and Mitch Ballock (10.7 ppg, 38.6 3PM). Marcus Zegarowski is the teams’ best distributor and is also a sniper from long range (13.8 ppg, 34.1% 3PM), and Christian Bishop is a 6-7 forward that is shooting the three-ball at a 50 percent clip.
It shouldn’t be a huge surprise that the team that has a roster of outside shooters is not exactly a team that also believes in relentless defense. The Bluejays enter tonight’s game with the 249th overall three-point defense and are outside of the top 160 in forced turnover percentage and offensive rebounding.
Teams also average about 17 seconds a possession when going against the Creighton defense (265th overall in college basketball), indicating that an open shot is not hard to come by when playing against the boys from Omaha.

St. John’s Players to Know

Mike Anderson is slowly rebuilding the Johnnies after the disastrous Chris Mullin regime, and while they struggle shooting the three (231st overall in NCAA), they have a stable of athletes that can shine in Anderson’s torrid style of basketball.
The main component of the Red Storm attack is sophomore guard and the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, Julian Champagnie. Champagnie is averaging nearly 21 points a game with eight rebounds chipped in, and he’s been especially dependable from the free-throw line where he’s converted on nearly 87 percent of his free throws.
Junior tandem Vince Cole (12.5 ppg, 35.5% 3PM) and Greg Williams Jr. (12.1 ppg, 36.8% 3PM) give the Johnnies their best role players and threats from outside, while 6-10 junior Isaih Moore (10.6 ppg, 6.1 rpg) is Anderson’s most dependable rim protector down low.
As could be expected with Anderson’s frenetic style of basketball, St. John’s is downright miserable on defense when they are unable to force a turnover. While the ’40 minutes of hell’ mantra does have St. John’s forcing turnovers on 25% of their opposition’s possessions (28th overall in NCAA), and the 8th best steal rate in the nation, when they do not force a turnover it typically ends in an easy bucket for the other side.
St. John’s boasts the 250th ranked three-point shooting defense and gives up a basket on 56% of their opponent’s possessions (285th in NCAA). That could post a great number of challenges for a team that happens to be facing one of the best offensive teams in the country.

Creighton – St. John’s Prediction & Best Bet

Everything about this matchup screams a prime bounce-back spot for the Bluejays. Despite the two recent setbacks to Missouri and Marquette, Creighton still very much remains as one of the most dangerous teams in all of college basketball.
St. John’s is gradually improving under Mike Anderson, but this is just a bad matchup for them all around. I am taking Creighton to cover the spread and also sprinkling some on the over as, despite the eye-popping 157.5 number, I think that’s kind of low for these two teams.
Prediction: Creighton 87, St. John’s 78 Best Bet: Creighton -6.5; OVER 157.5

Omaha at Wyoming

Spread: Wyoming -10.5 Total: O/U 146.5 Time/TV: 9:00 PM ET, N/A
For our final game on the Thursday betting card, we’re going a little off the beaten path for some quality Summit League vs. Mountain West action.
Omaha (2-6 overall) plays its sixth-consecutive road game, and second game in as many nights, when they visit Wyoming (5-1 overall) in Laramie.
The Mavericks are coming off of a 91-49 blowout at the hands of Colorado last night and have dropped five of their last six games with their lone victory being a two-point win over SIU Edwardsville (331st overall KenPom).
Meanwhile, Wyoming has been a pleasant surprise to date with a 5-1 record, but they have played the 306th overall schedule so that record is likely a bit misleading at this point in the season. Nonetheless, they do get another favorable draw tonight with an Omaha team that doesn’t do much of anything well.

Omaha Players to Know

The Mavericks best player and leading scorer through the first eight games of the season are that of bench player Marlon Ruffin (11.8 ppg), with starters Matt Pile (9.3 ppg, 9.1 rpg) and Wanjang Tut (8.1 ppg) being Omaha’s best secondary players. It’s rare to see the talent flipped to where their best bench player is outperforming every starter, but this is the Summit League and there are no rules here.

Wyoming Players to Know

Through the first six games of the season, the Cowboys boast a Top 50 program in both three-point shooting (46th overall) and shots inside the three-point stripe (48th overall), and they’ve shown a great ability to limit turnovers with the 18th best turnover rate in college basketball.
While Wyoming has certainly played a schedule full of cupcakes, they’ve made the most of it and are quietly one of the most efficient scoring units in all of college basketball, at least in these games against the bottom feeders of the college basketball world.
Wyoming is led by their trio of guards: Marcus Williams (18.3 ppg), Kenny Foster (15.8 ppg, 67% 3PM), and Hunter Maldonado (15.5 ppg). Collectively, the Cowboys as a whole love to create open looks from the outside, with three key contributors shooting the ball from the perimeter at better than a 40 percent rate from downtown.
That does not bode well for an Omaha team that has been away from home for a while and does not defend the three-ball whatsoever.

Omaha – Wyoming Prediction & Best Bet

Typically, I would be hard-pressed to lay a double-digit line on a team that went 7-23 in the regular season a year ago, no matter who they may be playing. But Omaha is in a very tough spot playing in their second game in as many nights in a place that’s hard enough to get a road win under normal circumstances, much less in the middle of a season being held during a pandemic.
Omaha only has one more non-conference game after this and then they can return to the comfort of playing Summit League teams at home. Tonight, however, they will endure yet another blowout. I will take Wyoming to cover the 10.5-point spread.
Prediction: Wyoming 84, Omaha 69 Best Bet: Wyoming -10.5
How

Spread: Villanova -13.5 Total: O/U 132.5 Time/TV: 7:00 PM ET, FS1
The Butler Bulldogs head to Philadelphia to begin Big East Conference play when they meet 7th ranked Villanova.
For the Bulldogs, it will be just their second game of the new season, as the team has not played since the day before Thanksgiving due to a COVID-19 pause within their program. Their lone game of the season was a 66-62 victory over Western Michigan, but considering Butler was set to be in a rebuilding season regardless of any pandemic schedule shuffling, it’s difficult to read a whole lot into their lone performance of the year.
Since their opening loss to Butler, Western Michigan has gone on to lose three of their last four including a 79-61 blowout at the hands of #8 Michigan State and a pair of home losses to Detroit Mercy and Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who are ranked 201st and 254th respectively in the latest batch of rankings from Ken Pomeroy.
In other words, Butler’s only win of the season was a four-point home win over a 1-4 team from the MAC that figures to finish towards the bottom of the conference.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Villanova, on the other hand, has a bigger sample of games to work off of, and outside of their early overtime loss to Virginia Tech, they’ve been every bit as advertised heading into the new season.
Jay Wright’s team is the most balanced team in the Big East Conference, and their offensive efficiency is a sight to behold when everything is clicking. Considering Butler hasn’t stepped on the floor in 21 days, LaVall Jordan’s squad is in for one difficult opponent to face fresh off a long layoff.

Butler Players to Watch

Butler enters tonight’s game looking like an entirely different group than we saw take the floor last season when the Bulldogs found themselves ranked in the Top 10 of the country. The Bulldogs lost nearly 63 percent of their scoring from a season ago, including three of their top four scorers headlined by seniors Kamar Baldwin and Sean McDermott. Replacing that production will be an ongoing challenge for LaVall Jordan all season.
Fortunately for Butler, the cupboard wasn’t left entirely bare. Jordan returns three seniors to the team with guard Aaron Thompson expected to make the biggest leap in comparison to his play from a season ago. Thompson passed his first test by contributing 21 points and four assists in their win over Western Michigan, but he will face much stiffer competition this evening when he meets a stingy Villanova defense.
Bryce Nze (9.0 ppg) and Jair Bolden (15.0 ppg) are the other seniors on this team and the other players to pay close attention to this evening, though Nze may miss tonight’s game with an ankle injury. Freshmen Myles Tate and Chuck Harris also figure to be key contributors for Jordan’s team but had quiet debuts in the game against Western Michigan.
The Bulldogs are not an especially deep team, as they used only nine players in their season-opening victory, so this could also be of some importance in the event foul trouble occurs or Butler is flat out rusty in their first action in three weeks.

Villanova Players to Watch

While there are still a lot of questions swirling around the Butler side of things, Villanova’s roster is much easier to answer questions about.
The catalyst for the Villanova attack is that of the team’s leading scorer, senior point guard Collin Gillespie (15.2 ppg, 44.1% 3PM) along with budding star sophomore Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (15.0 ppg, 8.2 rpg). The inside-outside tandem was named to the Top 50 Wooden Award watch list at the start of the season and each player could find themselves lacing up their sneakers in the NBA before too long.
As is typically the case with a Jay Wright coached Villanova team, the ‘Cats have a bevy of dangerous shooters from the outside. Gillespie shoots the three-ball at a blistering 44 percent clip, but guard Caleb Daniels (12.7 ppg) shoots it even better at nearly a 47 percent rate from distance, with Cole Swider (37.9% 3PM) and Justin Moore (34.6% 3PM) giving Wright four shooters hitting the perimeter shot at about 35 percent or better.
To make matters more difficult for their opponent tonight, Villanova plays a very clean style of basketball. They have the 4th most efficient offense in all of college basketball and only turn the ball over on less than 13 percent of their possessions (9th best in NCAA).
If the three-ball is dropping, few teams in the country can hang with Villanova. If they’re cold from the outside, however, that opens the door for opponents to control the glass and get quick run-outs on long misses to convert into easier buckets. This is the recipe Virginia Tech used (along with red hot shooting from the outside) to score their earlier upset of Villanova, and it’s the one Butler will try its best at replicating tonight.

Butler – Villanova Prediction

The Butler Bulldogs have quietly been one of the steadier college basketball programs of the past decade, even since Brad Stevens departed the program several years ago to leap into the NBA. This season marks their first true rebuilding test in quite some time, but as stated previously, their cupboard is not entirely bare and as the season goes on you will likely see a much improved Bulldogs team.
Unfortunately for Butler backers, this is about the worst conference opponent you could have drawn when returning to play basketball for the first time in three weeks with a roster full of new faces. I like Butler to keep the game close for a half, maybe even taking the lead into the break, before ‘Nova will find its outside shot and put the game far out of reach.
Look for the ‘Cats to win their conference opener and cover the spread in the process.
Prediction: Villanova 80, Butler 64 Best Bet: Villanova -13.5

I just wrote 32 articles in four days, and boy, is my brain tired.
It's hard work being the official media outlet* of a virtual basketball tournament, let alone THE virtual basketball tournament. I'm surviving, though, just barely.
If anything happens to me, please tell janiswfc I love them.
Anyway, in case you missed any of my very serious, very regal gamers from this round, here is your chance to catch up. All 32, posted right here for your convenience. And it's all so very, very exclusive.*
DAY ONE
Shaka Smart self-declares invincibility as Iowa clobbers Texas

“At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m going to live forever,” Smart said. “There doesn’t really seem to be any negative consequences for my failures. It’s pretty dope.”

BYU survives Stephen F. Austin in late scramble

“That was a fuck up for sure,” said Kevon Harris, who took the terrible shot.

New Mexico State falls to Oregon as Payton Pritchard shows out

“It’s a process,” said New Mexico State head coach Chris Jans. “The first step is getting here, and the second step is losing.”

Vermont shocks Louisville with Everett Duncan heroism

“There are several people named Duncan on this team for some reason,” Duncan said. “That’s first and last names. I’m sick of it. I want to stand out. I want to be my own man. I want to be the top Duncan of Vermont.
“I think I accomplished that tonight.”

Michigan State slams Little Rock in basketball 'game'

“It was good to see the generosity our players showed Little Rock,” head coach and part-time garden gnome Tom Izzo said. “A few of our guys gave the Little Rock players words of encouragement even after they embarrassed themselves live on YouTube for everyone, even their crushes, to see. Sportsmanship is at the core of our program.”

Akron stuns Ohio State as Xeyrius Williams posts double-double

“Xeyrius Williams has a great name, but it’s arguably not even the best on our team,” Groce explained. “We got a guy named Ali Ali. We have another dude named Channel. One guy’s last name is Cheese. The name ‘Enrique Freeman’ does not sound correct. I’m still not sure how to pronounce Maishe Dailey. And the best might be LePear Toles, which again, is the real name of a player on my team. He’s a sophomore guard from Canton. I’m not making this up.”

Eastern Washington blindsides San Diego State in 15-2 upset

“Fuck your brackets,” Legans said. “EWU, bitch.”

Creighton outlasts UC Irvine as Denzel Mahoney goes off

“Oh lord, no. No, no, not again, no. Please, God, no, not like this,” McDermott said he pleaded to God on the sideline in the second half. “Just one Sweet 16, please, even if it’s in a video game.”

DAY TWO
Illinois holds off Utah State with late shots

“As you can see, I’m wearing one of my energy crystals, which have helped bring me incredible good fortune in recent months,” Frazier explained. “This one right here is for love, which is what I try to spread with my basketball game. That’s the secret to everything, man, it’s love. There can be nothing without love.”

Marquette handles Arizona behind 37 via Markus Howard

“I have been working part-time as an extra-absorbent paper towel in the event I lose this job,” Sean Miller explained. “Business is booming, and soon I can take this operation full time. I won’t even need Arizona for much longer. Pump and dump, baby, pump and dump.”

Oklahoma slices Colorado as Tad Boyle has public breakdown

“I forgot Battey was on the team, okay?” Boyle said through sniffles as he held back tears. “It’s hard. This job is hard. It’s hard to keep track of everything.”

Saint Mary's edges Houston as Kelvin Sampson discovers offense exists

“He was telling me about this thing, offense I think I remember he called it,” Sampson recalled. “Anyway, he was talking about this offense thing, going on and on about working for good shots, ball movement, attacking the rim, what have you. It sounded odd to me, but we were down quite a bit. I didn’t know what else to try.”

Virginia defeats East Tennessee State, Tony Bennett bewildered

“I hate basketball,” he said. “I’ve been spending decades trying to destroy it from the inside. For my own players to undermine me like this, I find it disgusting. You can expect to see a lot more bricks and turnovers in our second game, I can promise you that.”

John Calipari avenges Evansville loss through Bradley

“I don’t care for those wise guys out in the Missouri Valley, see,” he said while wearing a trench coat and playing cards. “Where I come from, we take care of people like that, and their associates, too. Bradley got what it had coming.”

Bill Self suffers cardiac arrest as Kansas narrowly escapes NC Central

“Our guys fought until the end, and that’s something they can keep with them for the rest of the time the owner of his game keeps these rosters,” Moton said. “Besides, Kansas probably cheated, anyway.”

Gonzaga begins Cinderella run with incredible start-from-ahead victory

“It’s a huge day for our program,” said Gonzaga head coach Mark Few, who has assembled a rag-tag group of barely top-100 prospects and some of the best foreign talent into a Round of 32 participant. “It’s incredible the things you can accomplish when you leave your ego at the door.”

DAY THREE
Michigan beats Florida as Hell arrives on Earth

“I just figured, if you’re trying to create a hell on Earth, what would be the easiest way to do it?” Satan said. “It didn’t take long for Michigan and Florida to come to mind. Putting them together, on the same field or court, at least once every calendar year in meaningful games, surely it would allow some amount of a realistic hell on the planet.”

Providence mounts unreal comeback as Rutgers falls apart

“Just another day in the Big East,” Cooley said after the game. “It’s like Buttgers never left.”

Cincinnati fails to upset Auburn, just like we knew they would

“Once we saw we had Cincinnati in our first game, we weren’t too worried,” Fred Flintstone, known in modern times as Bruce Pearl, said. “You can take the Cronin out of the Cincinnati, but you can’t take the Cincinnati out of the Cincinnati.”

Wisconsin takes out North Texas a Greg Gard garbles

“Garble, garble, garble,” Gard garbled, emphasizing the importance of Wisconsin’s free-throw shooting in crunch time. “Garble, garble, garble.”

Maryland holds off Yale as Terps fan can no longer stand it

Good job, Mark! You did it! You beat another mid-major, double-digit seed! Time to pop the champagne!

Butler beats Liberty as LaVall Jordan and Kamar Baldwin change my life

“Thank you, my son,” Jordan said, placing a wreath upon thine head and waving his hand to grace me with great fortune. “You are at peace now.”

North Dakota State dumps Florida State in all-time surprise

“I’m going to the liquor store, I’m buying all the liquor they got, and I’m getting drunk as fuck tonight, boys,” promised North Dakota State head coach David Richman.

Darrin Horn preaches Odin's teachings as Villanova trounces Northern Kentucky

“As we are taught in the the Hávamál, it is important to move on from things,” he explained graciously.
“The unwise man is awake all night, and ponders everything over; when morning comes he is weary in mind, and all is a burden as ever,” Darrin Horn continued, quoting his favorite of the 10 proverbs from the Hávamál.

DAY FOUR
Bob Huggins mauls innocent ref as West Virginia eliminates UCLA

For minutes, the brutal attack wore on with thousands listening to the tearing of skin, the breaking of bones and the final yelps of a dying man’s last pleas. After it was done, Huggins slowly rose, standing on only his hind legs and faced the two remaining refs, bearing his teeth.

Chris Beard helps make Texas Tech-Penn State rivalry renewal possible

“I’ve been eating nothing but mountain lion for weeks,” said Texas Tech student Benny “The Multiplier” Martinez. “My stool is hardening. Wreck ’em Tech!”

Skylar Mays explodes as LSU routs Arizona State

“We do a lot of preparations before games, and before the season even, to be prepared for our, shall we call them, opponents,” Wade slithered through his fingers as he tapped their tips against each other, menacingly. “We had been saving up for the tournament for a while.”

Indiana defeats USC as Hoosiers Faithful lose faith

“Great, fucking great,” complained Richard Stroganoff, Class of ’87. “One damn win in a video game, and we’re stuck with Archie for another two years, minimum.
“You’ll never replace Bobby!” he shouted as he stood to face at a wall poster of Miller with googly eyes, a crudely drawn mustache and a goofy sombrero vandalizing the coach’s appearance.
“You’ll never replace Bobby,” Stroganoff quietly muttered, slumping against the wall and collapsing into a heap of tears and woe.

Mike Krzyzewski makes media forget Hofstra exists after Duke win

“The chest pat is everything,” his holiness explained later when us mortal media members were fortunate enough to be graced with his words of wisdom. “Without it, you have nothing.”

Seton Hall blows out Belmont in Reddit March Madness First Round

“It’s not what we came here hopin’ for,” Belmont head coach and country music studio recording artist Casey Alexander sang with a twang, “but it is what we’re leavin’ here cryin’ for.”

Obi Toppin gets stalked as Dayton throttles Winthrop

“I’ve been getting very unsettling phone calls from numbers I don’t know from Cleveland,” Obi Toppin explained. “It’s a distorted male voice that keeps telling me he loves me over and over again, and that everything is going to be okay. Sometimes he shushes me. Plus, I received flowers from a ‘secret admirer,’ and they were all dead. I’m starting to get scared.”

Scott Drew arrested for murder after Baylor kills Boston University

“The NCAA wanted eliminate Boston University because its name is dumb,” the report from Scoops Callahan reads. “They think it’s pretentious that they always have to have the University or U in there, and that it’s too much of a mouthful. So, they put Baylor and Scott Drew on the job, and now an innocent university is dead.”

THE FUTURE
I plan on keeping this going for the rest of the tournament, plus I'm trying to work out more to do with this, such as previews, features and other content. It seems the people would like more satirical writing, so more satirical writing the people shall get. The responses to my work have been overwhelming positive, and I really appreciate the support and kind words.
^{* = this means you can't sue me}

Now that we're in late April, Reddit March Madness has come and gone, and Seton Hall can celebrate its first national championship and FIRE IT UP! Congratulations to the Pirates, and a hearty congrats to BYU, West Virginia and Gonzaga, too, for reaching the 2020 Final Four.
As the exclusive* media home for the tournament, I covered every game from the first round through the championship, plus features and previews along the way. That's a lot of content, and I know you want to go through all of it. That's why I've put it here, all in one post, for you to conveniently and consistently browse your modern-day Bible.
It has been a privilege and an honor to serve you fine folk with Internet connections (fuck anyone who doesn't, am I right?). You all mean so much to me. I wish you all a Merry Pandemic!
Without further ado, here is your entertainment.
FIRST ROUND
Shaka Smart self-declares invincibility as Iowa clobbers Texas

“At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m going to live forever,” Smart said. “There doesn’t really seem to be any negative consequences for my failures. It’s pretty dope.”

BYU survives Stephen F. Austin in late scramble

“That was a fuck up for sure,” said Kevon Harris, who took the terrible shot.

New Mexico State falls to Oregon as Payton Pritchard shows out

“It’s a process,” said New Mexico State head coach Chris Jans. “The first step is getting here, and the second step is losing.”

Vermont shocks Louisville with Everett Duncan heroism

“There are several people named Duncan on this team for some reason,” Duncan said. “That’s first and last names. I’m sick of it. I want to stand out. I want to be my own man. I want to be the top Duncan of Vermont.
“I think I accomplished that tonight.”

Michigan State slams Little Rock in basketball 'game'

“It was good to see the generosity our players showed Little Rock,” head coach and part-time garden gnome Tom Izzo said. “A few of our guys gave the Little Rock players words of encouragement even after they embarrassed themselves live on YouTube for everyone, even their crushes, to see. Sportsmanship is at the core of our program.”

Akron stuns Ohio State as Xeyrius Williams posts double-double

“Xeyrius Williams has a great name, but it’s arguably not even the best on our team,” Groce explained. “We got a guy named Ali Ali. We have another dude named Channel. One guy’s last name is Cheese. The name ‘Enrique Freeman’ does not sound correct. I’m still not sure how to pronounce Maishe Dailey. And the best might be LePear Toles, which again, is the real name of a player on my team. He’s a sophomore guard from Canton. I’m not making this up.”

Eastern Washington blindsides San Diego State in 15-2 upset

“Fuck your brackets,” Legans said. “EWU, bitch.”

Creighton outlasts UC Irvine as Denzel Mahoney goes off

“Oh lord, no. No, no, not again, no. Please, God, no, not like this,” McDermott said he pleaded to God on the sideline in the second half. “Just one Sweet 16, please, even if it’s in a video game.”

Illinois holds off Utah State with late shots

“As you can see, I’m wearing one of my energy crystals, which have helped bring me incredible good fortune in recent months,” Frazier explained. “This one right here is for love, which is what I try to spread with my basketball game. That’s the secret to everything, man, it’s love. There can be nothing without love.”

Marquette handles Arizona behind 37 via Markus Howard

“I have been working part-time as an extra-absorbent paper towel in the event I lose this job,” Sean Miller explained. “Business is booming, and soon I can take this operation full time. I won’t even need Arizona for much longer. Pump and dump, baby, pump and dump.”

Oklahoma slices Colorado as Tad Boyle has public breakdown

“I forgot Battey was on the team, okay?” Boyle said through sniffles as he held back tears. “It’s hard. This job is hard. It’s hard to keep track of everything.”

Saint Mary's edges Houston as Kelvin Sampson discovers offense exists

“He was telling me about this thing, offense I think I remember he called it,” Sampson recalled. “Anyway, he was talking about this offense thing, going on and on about working for good shots, ball movement, attacking the rim, what have you. It sounded odd to me, but we were down quite a bit. I didn’t know what else to try.”

Virginia defeats East Tennessee State, Tony Bennett bewildered

“I hate basketball,” he said. “I’ve been spending decades trying to destroy it from the inside. For my own players to undermine me like this, I find it disgusting. You can expect to see a lot more bricks and turnovers in our second game, I can promise you that.”

John Calipari avenges Evansville loss through Bradley

“I don’t care for those wise guys out in the Missouri Valley, see,” he said while wearing a trench coat and playing cards. “Where I come from, we take care of people like that, and their associates, too. Bradley got what it had coming.”

Bill Self suffers cardiac arrest as Kansas narrowly escapes NC Central

“Our guys fought until the end, and that’s something they can keep with them for the rest of the time the owner of his game keeps these rosters,” Moton said. “Besides, Kansas probably cheated, anyway.”

Gonzaga begins Cinderella run with incredible start-from-ahead victory

“It’s a huge day for our program,” said Gonzaga head coach Mark Few, who has assembled a rag-tag group of barely top-100 prospects and some of the best foreign talent into a Round of 32 participant. “It’s incredible the things you can accomplish when you leave your ego at the door.”

Michigan beats Florida as Hell arrives on Earth

“I just figured, if you’re trying to create a hell on Earth, what would be the easiest way to do it?” Satan said. “It didn’t take long for Michigan and Florida to come to mind. Putting them together, on the same field or court, at least once every calendar year in meaningful games, surely it would allow some amount of a realistic hell on the planet.”

Providence mounts unreal comeback as Rutgers falls apart

“Just another day in the Big East,” Cooley said after the game. “It’s like Buttgers never left.”

Cincinnati fails to upset Auburn, just like we knew they would

“Once we saw we had Cincinnati in our first game, we weren’t too worried,” Fred Flintstone, known in modern times as Bruce Pearl, said. “You can take the Cronin out of the Cincinnati, but you can’t take the Cincinnati out of the Cincinnati.”

Wisconsin takes out North Texas a Greg Gard garbles

“Garble, garble, garble,” Gard garbled, emphasizing the importance of Wisconsin’s free-throw shooting in crunch time. “Garble, garble, garble.”

Maryland holds off Yale as Terps fan can no longer stand it

Good job, Mark! You did it! You beat another mid-major, double-digit seed! Time to pop the champagne!

Butler beats Liberty as LaVall Jordan and Kamar Baldwin change my life

“Thank you, my son,” Jordan said, placing a wreath upon thine head and waving his hand to grace me with great fortune. “You are at peace now.”

North Dakota State dumps Florida State in all-time surprise

“I’m going to the liquor store, I’m buying all the liquor they got, and I’m getting drunk as fuck tonight, boys,” promised North Dakota State head coach David Richman.

Darrin Horn preaches Odin's teachings as Villanova trounces Northern Kentucky

“As we are taught in the the Hávamál, it is important to move on from things,” he explained graciously.
“The unwise man is awake all night, and ponders everything over; when morning comes he is weary in mind, and all is a burden as ever,” Darrin Horn continued, quoting his favorite of the 10 proverbs from the Hávamál.

Bob Huggins mauls innocent ref as West Virginia eliminates UCLA

For minutes, the brutal attack wore on with thousands listening to the tearing of skin, the breaking of bones and the final yelps of a dying man’s last pleas. After it was done, Huggins slowly rose, standing on only his hind legs and faced the two remaining refs, bearing his teeth.

Chris Beard helps make Texas Tech-Penn State rivalry renewal possible

“I’ve been eating nothing but mountain lion for weeks,” said Texas Tech student Benny “The Multiplier” Martinez. “My stool is hardening. Wreck ’em Tech!”

Skylar Mays explodes as LSU routs Arizona State

“We do a lot of preparations before games, and before the season even, to be prepared for our, shall we call them, opponents,” Wade slithered through his fingers as he tapped their tips against each other, menacingly. “We had been saving up for the tournament for a while.”

Indiana defeats USC as Hoosiers Faithful lose faith

“Great, fucking great,” complained Richard Stroganoff, Class of ’87. “One damn win in a video game, and we’re stuck with Archie for another two years, minimum.
“You’ll never replace Bobby!” he shouted as he stood to face at a wall poster of Miller with googly eyes, a crudely drawn mustache and a goofy sombrero vandalizing the coach’s appearance.
“You’ll never replace Bobby,” Stroganoff quietly muttered, slumping against the wall and collapsing into a heap of tears and woe.

Mike Krzyzewski makes media forget Hofstra exists after Duke win

“The chest pat is everything,” his holiness explained later when us mortal media members were fortunate enough to be graced with his words of wisdom. “Without it, you have nothing.”

Seton Hall blows out Belmont in Reddit March Madness First Round

“It’s not what we came here hopin’ for,” Belmont head coach and country music studio recording artist Casey Alexander sang with a twang, “but it is what we’re leavin’ here cryin’ for.”

Obi Toppin gets stalked as Dayton throttles Winthrop

“I’ve been getting very unsettling phone calls from numbers I don’t know from Cleveland,” Obi Toppin explained. “It’s a distorted male voice that keeps telling me he loves me over and over again, and that everything is going to be okay. Sometimes he shushes me. Plus, I received flowers from a ‘secret admirer,’ and they were all dead. I’m starting to get scared.”

Scott Drew arrested for murder after Baylor kills Boston University

“The NCAA wanted eliminate Boston University because its name is dumb,” the report from Scoops Callahan reads. “They think it’s pretentious that they always have to have the University or U in there, and that it’s too much of a mouthful. So, they put Baylor and Scott Drew on the job, and now an innocent university is dead.”

SECOND ROUND
Jake Toolson leads with 31 as BYU gets to first Sweet 16 since 2011

“My mommy and daddy said that if the Cougars go to the Final Four, God is listening to my prayers!” said 8-year-old BYU fan Ammon Bluth, jumping up and down with joy before stopping, his face dropping and the sudden malaise of reality beginning to churn in his young mind. “Wait, what does it mean if they don’t?”

Bob Huggins apologizes for ref mauling in Reddit March Madness

“I don’t see what the big deal is, but lots of people got mad, so here you go,” Huggins said in a special press conference. “I’m sorry if I offended you. There you go. There it is.”

Greg McDermott considers his bleak future as Illinois beats Creighton

“I’m gonna lose my job, and then I’m gonna lose the house, too,” McDermott said, pacing ferociously and periodically hitting himself in the head with an open palm in feeble attempts to knock himself into an alternate, more successful reality that does not exist, not even in the make-believe land of College Hoops 2K8 simulations. “Theresa is definitely gonna leave me. What am I going to do without Theresa?”

Kentucky comes back to topple Iowa for fourth-straight Sweet 16

“I would like to dedicate this performance to the otters,” Hagans said. “No one in basketball is talking about otters. I’m sick of it. It’s time to start, #OtterTalk.”

Randy Bennett attacks assistant as I meet the love of my life

“I think I love you,” Shemika said, biting her lip.
“Word,” I responded, sexily.

Shantay Legans continues trash talk as Reddit March Madness goes on

“Ain’t nothing golden about Marquette,” Shantay Legans explained. “You ever been to Milwaukee? They should call themselves the Gray Eagles. At least that would make sense.”

Marquette discards Eastern Washington, Mike Wazowski Astounded

“Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Paul, Peter, all of them,” Wazowski said in disbelief. “Moses, Avraham, Yakov, Mohammad, Buddha, Confucius. Thanks to all of them. Whomever is responsible for this, thank you.”

Michigan State stomps Virginia hearts yet again as the cruelty continues

“Tom Izzo,” he muttered in his stupor as he rolled over from his back to his side to face me, a pool of vomit slipping from his lap onto the pavement. “He ruined my life.”

Payton Pritchard goes 25 and 10 as Oregon hammers Akron

“I ate a lot of bugs before, which provides me with my species’ equivalent to protein, so I was extra strong for today’s game,” he explained. “My metabolism processes the bugs much faster than humans process their food, and it gives me strength immediately that same day. I was sent to this planet to win basketball games for Dana Altman. I am not collecting valuable information so that my species can destroy the human race.”

Lon Kruger reads the funnies after Gonzaga tackles Oklahoma

“I’ve been in basketball a long time, long enough to remember the great Buddy Hield,” Lon Kruger reminisced. “Oh, what great days those were. You could just give him the ball, and he would do something magical with it. Now all these kids want to do these days is sit around on their iTabs and their GameDudes, living in some kind of fantasy. Well, I prefer the real world, where we’re really watching simulations of a 13-year-old college basketball video game instead of March Madness this year because of A GOD DAMN VIRUS!”

LSU backs Will Wade as Reddit March Madness Second Round rages on

“There is no change to Coach Will Wade’s employment status at LSU and we will continue to not give a shit,” the school said.

Maryland Fandom: A Story of Struggle and Strife

“‘AYALA FOR THREE’ WILL FOREVER HAUNT MY NIGHTMARES!” shouted business major Georgio Mancala as he climbed on top of the bar and began throwing cups, napkins and everything else he could get his hands on into the air, causing mass mayhem.

Jeremiah Robinson Earl tackles inner demon as Villanova bests Michigan

“We’re a scorpio, and today our horoscope said that for a few weeks, we’ve been struggling with our physical appearance,” said the medically-conjoined elite basketball machine. “Our horoscope also said that a decision we make at the end of the day will help with those negative thoughts, and tonight was that decision. We decided that we don’t care if having three people smashed into one mechanical-engineered monster of a basketball superhuman doesn’t fit into the constraints of conventional attractiveness. We’re all beautiful in our own ways, and basketball is how we share our beauty with the world.”

West Virginia beats Duke, Bob Huggins proves his literacy all in one day

“In case he was wondering if I can read, I took a look at the scoreboard and wanted to let him know that I read, ‘WEST VIRGINIA 81, DUKE 74,'” Huggins said. “He can let me know later if I read that right.”

LSU stuns Dayton, proving the arc of justice bends however it wants

“This world is a sick place. There’s no righteousness in this place,” said Toppin, turning up his upper lip in disgust, then changing his expression to complete anger after his phone rang and he saw who was calling. “And these fucking calls won’t stop either! I know it’s you, Dan! Leave me alone! I don’t need this right now!”

Texas Tech, Lubbock prep for possible Sweet 16 on 2nd Round's last day

“I’ve become connected with an anti-human trafficking human trafficker who fools, then kidnaps and smuggles Somali pirates to various parts of the world as property, and it’s totally legit,” Martinez explained. “So, while I doubt the pirates that Seton Hall is referring to in its nickname come from Somali, it’s really the most realistic route you could expect one to take given that pirates are an endangered species in 2020. Wreck ’em Tech!”

Seton Hall survives Texas Tech as late-game incompetence dominates

“It was a crazy game to be a part of. It was an offensive explosion from both teams,” Rhoden said, using his hands to illustrate things blowing up. “It was like, BOOM! And then like, BOOM! And, and then, BOOM! You know? It was like that. A lot of booms.”

Austin Wiley bemoans graduation after Wisconsin ousts Auburn

“But … mom … I … don’t … wanna … come … HOOOOOOME!” Austin Wiley struggled to get out to his mother over the phone amid the intense sniffles and tears he was fighting through. “I’m gonna miss my friends, and all my toys and stuff are here. I don’t wanna leave. I don’t wanna come to Hoover. I WANNA STAY!”

Hoosiers are losers to Baylor, sending some IU fans into total despair

“How has this happened?” Richard Stroganoff, Class of ’87, asked the empty void he couldn’t escape as he wept on the floor of his kitchen in the fetal position, leaning against the dish washing machine and clutching a framed picture of Bob Knight.

David Richman sets records as 15 North Dakota State joins Sweet 16

“I was the drunkest anyone has ever been in the state of North Carolina,” his statement read. “Pretty sweet, right?”

SWEET 16 PREVIEW
Reddit March Madness Sweet 16 is (finally) upon us

“IT’S A WAR ZONE OUT HERE,” shouted Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo from the inside an active helicopter, camouflage paint and clothing covering his body for safety precautions during the medical supply drop. “NO ONE IS SAFE, NOT EVEN DUKE."

SWEET 16
Calipari watches dazzle Bunderwood in landslide Kentucky win

“Did I plan for it to go like it did?” Calipari asked, laughing and sitting back his chair, crossing his arms. “I guess we got a wise guy ‘ere, huh? Well, kid, I did plan for it to go like this. Know how? Because I wanted to make sure Illinois knew where it belongs. I wanted it to know that even when the light at the end of the tunnel looks like it’s getting brighter, I can close the blinds.”

Izzo does it again as Michigan State trumps Marquette for Elite Eight bid

“It’s all about yelling at your players, but doing it the right way,” Izzo explained. “You gotta do it in a way that makes people laugh. Screaming is fine as long as you’re little and goofy, especially in comparison to your players. That’s the key.”

Tom Riddle becomes more brazen as BYU takes out Kansas

“People are always going to try to find a way to bring down the almighty and all-powerful,” he said, his cheeks and forehead beginning to throb a light blue as a uncontrollable grin spread wide across his face. “We will vanquish them, as we do all enemies, as we prove ourselves as the most dominant force in the world. Our power is growing, Cougars. Remain with me as I bring us to the end of the muggle nightmare."

Zags cruise through Oregon, continuing six-year Cinderella run

“Gonzaga in the Elite Eight,” he said to Tracy Wolfson on the court after the game, tears welling in his eyes as their genuine and powerful charisma captured the heart of America. “Wow, what a world.”

Kevin Willard has emergency while Seton Hall ends North Dakota State

“WHERE ARE THE BATHROOMS IN THIS PLACE FUCK FUCK FUCK,” Willard is thinking, right now.

Jay Wright gives inspirational speech as West Virginia washes Villanova

“I don’t understand,” Jay Wright said in the post-game press conference, flabbergasted. “It worked for the championships…”

Greg Gard scolds me after Wisconsin falls to Baylor in Sweet 16

“Garble, garble, garble,” he garbled, insulting me for bringing up such a hoax and shouting at me to leave, insisting that he would not continue the presser until I was gone. “Garble, garble, garble.”

Javonte Smart has a talk with the Lord and LSU tops Butler

“I just felt something come over me,” he explained, jubilantly. “I felt something mighty, something powerful. I felt an internal phone ringing in my head, and so I answered it. I knew right then and there that that was the Lord, and when the Lord calls, you answer the phone."

ELITE EIGHT PREVIEWS
Seton Hall Arrives in First Elite Eight in 29 Years

“It’s an amazing thing,” Willard said, eager to get off the topic of his accident. “It’s a testament to the amount of work these kids put in each and every day, adjusting to this tournament being played with one fewer dimension than they’re accustomed to and how fortunate our draw has been.”

Baylor Basketball Aims at First Final Four Since the Truman Administration

“There were presidents before Obama?” sophomore guard Matthew Mayer asked, innocently.

BYU Basketball Has Provo Preparing for Marriage Mayhem

“The Cougars are one win from the Final Four!” said 8-year-old BYU fan Ammon Bluth, whose parents told him after the Vermont game that if the Cougars made it to the Final Four, then God was listening to his prayers. “I can’t wait until God listens to my prayers about world peace and hunger, too!”

Big Blue Nation Ready to Pounce if Wildcats Fail

“We ain’t even won shit yet,” said card-carrying Big Blue Nation member Peevis Moon. “This is the season, right here. Final Four or never more for John Calipoopi.”

LSU Basketball Fan Rejoices as Will Wade Takes Franchise to Next Level

“RAH RAH RAH,” the only LSU basketball fan in existence, Buford Fontenot, unintelligibly shouted at me from his shrimp boat, wearing only overalls and a hat he clearly just found somewhere, while I stood on the dock at a safe distance in case things got too Cajun. “BASSETBALL!”

WVU Basketball Could Complete Epic Turnaround with Final Four

“We have been working to expand our drunk tanks and get extra pumps to J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in preparation for WVU basketball this week,” said Morgantown police chief Hobart McDonald’s. “I can’t wait to get West Virginia wild.”

Cassius Winston Plans Surprise for Tom Izzo ahead of Elite Eight

“If we win, we’re gonna get a great, big pinata of Coach K, hang it up and surprise him with it in the locker room after the game,” Cassius Winston said. “We already have it all planned out for how to make it a secret. We have a few other guys on the team in on it. Kenny Goins provided the bat, because he had several for some reason. I can’t wait for the look on his face. And think of the candy, too!”

Cinderella of Reddit March Madness, Gonzaga Stands for Little Man

“Well, there’s one thing: they can’t order us to stop dreaming,” explained Ayayi, his breathtakingly beautiful dress blowing so elegantly in the wind. “So we’ll trust our hearts, what else can we do? We can’t live in dreams if our dreams are to come true.”

ELITE EIGHT
BYU Gets to to First Final Four, 'Calipoopi' Trends on Twitter

“I said Final Four or never more for John Calipoopi before the doggone game, and my mind ain’t changed,” tweeted card-carrying Big Blue Nation member Peevis Moon from his handle @UKWildcatzFan1972. “That was pathetic! Never seen UK play worse! I’m done with Calipoopi the Fraud!”

Kevin Willard Goes Jersey as Pirates Punch Baylor for Final Four Ticket

“People have been talking about our draw coming into this round,” Kevin Willard said on the court right after the game. “How we didn’t play anyone, so we were going to lose to big, bad, murderous Baylor. Well guess what? Seton Hall don’t give a fuck, jack, and that means Jersey ’bout to run up in ATL with some GTL, you feel?”

West Virginia Clips LSU, Sends Bob Huggins to Third Final Four

“I feel like I am West Virginia,” he said. “I act like West Virginia, I think like West Virginia, I’m shaped like West Virginia. There’s nothing but West Virginia in me, you can be damn sure of that."

Mark Few Sprinkles Me with Fairy Dust as Cinderella Dances to Final Four

“Look at how pretty I am!” Gonzaga forward Corey Kispert said while frolicking about the media room, a wide smile on his face. “I’m the prettiest girl at the dance. Why, I think I might be the prettiest lady this side of the Mississippi!”

FINAL FOUR PREVIEWS
Final Four Teams Meet with Atlanta Schoolchildren to Give Back

“Your dads give you a beer yet?” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins asked a group of fifth graders, taking a sip of his whiskey, then lighting his cigar and puffing it out into the room.

Tom Riddle Takes in First Final Four of Coaching Career

“You always dream about getting to a point like this when you’re drafting plans for how to eliminate an entire subset of the population from existence,” Riddle explained. “It’s not until you’re actually here, standing in Atlanta and feeling the energy around you, that you realize it can be real and not just a fantasy.”

Romaro Gill Explains his Horsey Lifestyle

“We have a chores list, WHICH PATCHES IS NOT GOOD ABOUT FOLLOWING,” Gill said, elevating his voice loud enough during the criticism so Patches could hear him in the other room. “But we have it all broken down, AND WHEN IT’S FOLLOWED, things move pretty smoothly around here.”

Chase Harler Comes Clean about Stamp Collections

“I’ve been collecting since I was a little boy, maybe 3 or 4 years old,” Harler said, beginning to choke up. “My cousin showed stamps to me, told me they were a nice hobby. I didn’t think anything much of it then, just thought they were interesting. I had no idea what it would turn in to. I didn’t know it would be like this.”

FINAL FOUR
Chase Harler Entirely to Blame as BYU Bounces WVU in Final Four

“We are truly at the precipice now,” he said he encouraged his players. “The darkness is near. Soon, the muggles will have no light with which to live, and the darkness shall envelope them. It shall be you who bring the darkness, and you will continue our long path to eventual muggle eradication in the second half.”

Myles Powell Proves Higher Power, Lifting Pirates Over Zags in Final Four

“I’m probably never going to be back here again,” Willard said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m a good coach. Seton Hall is fortunate to have me, and I’ll probably go to more Sweet 16s, lots more tournaments, all that. But win a national championship? Are you shitting me? Only in a season that is cancelled right before March Madness because of a pandemic, then the tournament is played out in a 13-year-old video game could I possibly pull that off, and those are the exact circumstances we find ourselves in. That’s why I have to capitalize. Now.”

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP PREVIEWS
Final Four of Misfits Provides Public with Entertainment, Danger

“Well, I can promise you that we won’t commit a genocide if we win,” said Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard. “We won’t if we lose, either. In fact, I can guarantee you that Seton Hall will never play a role in the creation or propagation of a genocide. We’re pretty committed to our values here, and genocide is something that goes against those values.”

BYU Remains Focused on the Day of the Big Game

“Please, God, won’t anyone listen to me?” Deep Stroke pleaded into the void of repeated history as I yawned. “Riddle says, ‘DEATH TO ALL MUGGLES’ almost every time you talk to him. Doesn’t that scare anyone? Do people even listen to the words this guy says? The dude is one win away from erasing a massive segment of the population from existence, and it feels like no one is reacting. WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!?!?!”

Seton Hall to Build Myles Powell Cathedral as Thanks for Title Game Run

“We’ll start with conception,” said Seton Hall president Eduardo Quinceañera, beaming with pride. “Then move on to birth, attending public schools in Trenton, the work on his basketball game, high school, coming to Seton Hall and then now, leading us to this point. And if we win, there will be a special panel dedicated just to his work in bringing us this title. And we’re going to leave out that thing from his past that he told us to because he didn’t want it getting out, so no concerns there.”

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Seton Hall Shocks Us All with World-Saving National Championship

“Hello, muggle world,” the man we understood to be Kevin Willard said. “I am Albus Dumbledore, and I have come to save you.”

AFTERMATH
Tom Riddle Defeated, World Saved as Pirates Take First Title

"I mean, hooray that BYU and Voldemort lost, I guess,” he said, miserably. “But no one even really seems to care, so it’s going to happen again. Nothing has changed. Tom Riddle, or someone or something like Tom Riddle, will be back in a short amount of time, and then we will go through this all over again.
“You spend your life trying to make the world a better place, trying to sound the alarm of impending danger and doom that you know is coming. You try to do the right thing. You try to help people. And society spits in your face and laughs for your efforts like you’re somehow the crazy one.
“It’s a joke. It’s all a cruel joke.”

THE FUTURE
From the response to my writing for this tournament, and from how much I enjoyed doing it, you can expect continued satirical writing on Nothing But Nylon. A good friend of mine, who is a stand-up comedian, is also joining the satirical army, though you can expect more NBA-focused jokes from him. If you enjoyed NBN's coverage of Reddit March Madness, be sure to stay tuned for much more like it.
As for me, I am going to enter hiding for fear of retaliation from Tom Riddle and his ilk. Although he was disembodied following the national championship loss, we've seen him come back from that before. I'll continue publishing online despite the danger, because that's how much my fiercely loyal readership means to me. Keep that in mind when you lay your head on your pillow in your safe, comfortable home, free from the threats of The Dark Lord, and check your fucking privilege*.
^{* = this means you can't sue me}