Someday, Mr. Bill will flatten Sluggo, ants will eat aardvarks, and the high school Dungeons & Dragons champ will get the hottest cheerleader.
Until that day, NBA farm schools like Kentucky will stomp slide-rule-wearing schools like Cornell just like they did Thursday night in the Sweet 16 in Syracuse, 62-45.
The Dweebs lost. The Studs won. The sun comes up in the east again tomorrow.
How could we have doubted it? Kentucky started two McDonald's High School All-Americans. Cornell players hardly even eat at McDonald's.
Every player Kentucky used was on a full-ride scholarship. Cornell doesn't have scholarships.
Kentucky specializes in the one-and-done. Cornell does nothing but four-and-done. If not five.
One of Cornell's players, Eitan Chemerinski, did a Rubik's cube in less than three minutes earlier this year. He's the one who speaks five languages. "He's learning Mandarin now, for fun," said a Cornell spokesman. But as 6-foot-11, 275-pound UK freshman center DeMarcus Cousins said before the game, "This ain't a spelling bee."
No it wasn't. It was a luau. And Cornell was the p-i-g.
Quicker, stronger, faster, longer, bigger and more athletic in every way, Kentucky schooled the Ivy Leaguers. Cornell may have shocked Temple and stunned Wisconsin, but Kentucky is not Temple or Wisconsin. The kind of defense Kentucky played Thursday night, the Wildcats could've beaten many Clippers teams. I would just say, if you have Kentucky at the end of your bracket, you can start planning your party.
"Man, they were really good," said starting Cornell guard Chris Wroblewski, a rather small redhead. "Coach said their length would be an 'issue.' But I had no idea it would be that large of an issue."
Seems like every time Wroblewski tried to throw a lob pass into his 7-foot one-time walk-on center, Jeff Foote, Kentucky's fab freshman John Wall would leap up and snatch it out of the air. "Yeah, in the Ivy league, I can usually get those in there," he lamented.
If it makes you feel any better, Chris, Wall might be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft this summer. "I know," he said. "I'm a fan of his."
Kentucky's defense was as smothering as a wool turtleneck. UK had twice as many steals, twice as many blocks and nearly 50 percent more rebounds than Cornell. Of course, Cornell is going to have about five times more diplomas.
Here were Cornell's starting majors: three in applied economics, one in policy analysis and one in biology. Here were Kentucky's: Well, we don't know Kentucky's. They don't list them anywhere in their media guide. And it's 208 pages.
Even Kentucky's cheerleaders were ridiculously better. Six guys, six gals and every one of them could do a standing backflip. They all looked like they went to Bicep Camp. Cornell had 11 gal cheerleaders and one guy, Jeffrey Holland. "Why am I the only one?" he said when I asked him. "I don't know. I've always been the only one. Junior high school. High school. And now college. I'm always the only one."
Imagine that.
Cinderella's ball ended hard and fast. The janitors were sweeping under her feet by halftime.
The best they could do was a shaky three-man pyramid. Kentucky's did one that practically reached the top of the Carrier Dome. Then flipped off it. Of course that's not really fair. Many of them will probably go pro, too.
Anyway, Cinderella's ball ended hard and fast. The janitors were sweeping under her feet by halftime. The hottest shooting 3-point team in the tournament was iced down by Kentucky to 24 percent. The Big Red's offense went Big Dead, scoring only 16 points in the entire first half, a season low. It looked like 7-on-5. The alma mater of Ashley Judd put a spike heel straight through the alma mater of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that was that.
Cornell's players shouldn't mourn, though. Most will leave their basketball careers behind now and go on to fabulous careers in science, business and medicine. And the good news: Many of them will meet these same Kentucky players again in NBA arenas across America very soon.
They'll be able to afford season tickets.
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