MCG Award: Robbing the Cradle

The highlight of Wednesday night was Coach Stansbury's wife. She gets very fired up during the games. Not just cheering fired up, but yelling at the officials, getting in the team huddle, calling players by their nicknames fired up. I'd respect her if I didn't have to sit so close to her. I mention this only because the Stansburys' whole family (wife and three young boys) travel to the MSU away games, or at least to Vanderbilt. Pretty cool gig for a little boy. And the Man Crush of the Game Award goes to the Commies own "kid": One JoJen.

I struggled with this pick because the last four minutes had Arlington Road written all over them: great lead up and then sweet mother of God you have to be joking that can't be how this is going to end. In steps one JoJen who, like a fool, takes that layup with a one point lead and under ten seconds on the clock when he should have dribbled out the clock. Now, I'll give JoJen a little bit of credit here. If the pass had been made half a second earlier, he had a much cleaner line to the basket. But it wasn't and he didn't. He misses that shot and MSU pulls the board, the possibility of the Andy Dufrane led domestic terrorists winning goes up exponentially. Thankfully, he instead went to the line and nailed the two free throws. Thus, we dream of fist bumps and akward high fives with him.

JoJen also gets the love because when he takes a shot, Mem Gym collectively holds it breath so that all can explode together when it goes in. The closest thing I can remember to it is when Jamie Graham would get put in on defense back when he played on Vanderbilt's winning team. I don't ever remember Maddux, Booker or Cox having this kind of impact on the live crowd. We also love JoJen because though he was wooed by other big deal suitors, he picked US! OMG! An eternal man crush of Commie Nation is a foregone conclusion.