Dribblings 11/23/2004 (Drama Queen Edition)

So if you're not following the controversy over the checkered college career of Wal-Mart heiress and Missouri basketball arena namesake Paige Laurie, or are just having trouble figuring out why her accuser is coming forward years after the fact, here's about getting you up to speed.

OK, so there's Paige, she's this rich girl, right? And then there's this girl from the other side of town, her name's Elena. Elena's like this total nerd who never gets invited to the cool parties, and she has all last year's clothes, and she's kinda fat, and there's this totally cute boy she likes but she knows she doesn't have a chance. So Elena and Paige are in the girls' room putting on their makeup or whatever, and Paige says, "Hey, you always have your hand up in class, can you help me out?" And Elena thinks, oooh, this is my chance to hang out with the popular girls. So she says, "Okay." And soon Elena's doing all of Paige's homework while Paige goes out to the beach in her convertible with her friends.

But Elena still doesn't get invited to Paige's cool parties. Plus, Paige is really mean to her when she makes mistakes and yells at her and stuff - like, "You're my bitch, Elena, remember that!" And then Paige starts hitting on that hunky boy Elena wants! OMFG! Then Elena drops out of school because she can't afford the tuition anymore - she spent the 20 G's of kickbacks that Paige gave her all on bling. So Elena sits around in her room crying, listening to her Death Cab For Cutie CD.

So it's like years later, and Elena's at this community college, trying to get her life back together and all that. One night, she sees on the news that Paige is having some basketball court or whatever named after her, and all those bad moments from college start flashing in front of her eyes. She grabs the phone and gets ready to call ABC News. "I was once your bitch, Paige," Elena says while the camera's zooming in. "And now you're gonna be mine."

C'mon, don't you people watch "The O.C."?

Georgia Tech barely escaped Illinois-Chicago of the Horizon League and Davidson of the Southern Conference nearly took full advantage of Duke's time-tested "dog it through the first half and put 'em away with a 10-0 run" approach. I know these are tune-up games, but it's always nice to see mid-majors play the ACC teams tough under any conditions.

In our continuing series of attempts to figure out exactly where the hell the Patriot League fits into the 2004-05 basketball cosmos, last night saw conference favorite Bucknell get knocked out 75-65 at home by St. Francis (PA), another NEC team not picked to do much.

People in the J-biz knock headline writers, but occasionally they do earn their checks.

Lastly, nothing brightens the holiday season like the gift of your own ass, and the Miami (Oh.) Redhawks were awful generous to Elite Eighters Xavier last night in that regard. I was able to watch this game from start to finish, thanks to Fox Sports Ohio. Coach Sean Miller is off to a bad start after stepping out of Thad Matta's shadow, and telling the courtside reporter at halftime that he has no answers for his opponent isn't going to endear him to the wackiest student section in the Midwest. If you aren't familiar with the southwestern Ohio area, this is serious stuff. Like, totally.

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