AT&T STADIUM, ARLINGTON, TEXAS — For those wondering how a basketball team from the effete Northeast could even dream of defeating a team from Kentucky, where basketball is everything, here’s how it happened yesterday evening.
With a little help from Huskies superstar Shabazz Napier, the Most Valuable Player in the Final Four, Connecticut’s junior US senator, Chris Murphy, the captain of UConn’s team, overwhelmed the Wildcats, captained by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The chief referee was a solitary reporter. The Wildcats began the season ranked No. 1, while Connecticut was a seventh-seeded afterthought.
Captain McConnell, 72, began by going directly for Murphy’s cojones, mirroring the typical GOP strategy of playing as dirty as possible, but the 40-year-old Murphy, knowing exactly what to expect, threw the 72-year old McConnell to the ground, not once, but five times, representing the fact that there are 53 Democrats in the Senate, with two Independents caucusing with the Democrats. Knowing full well that McConnell has his heart set on becoming Senate Majority Leader in the mid-terms, Murphy did his best to prevent McConnell from getting anywhere near the hoop. Murphy, a rising star in the Democratic Party, succeeded.
The rabid Wildcats fans, outraged that the solitary reporter was not penalizing Murphy, demanded numerous of his body parts, and all his blood, but the solitary reporter was unfazed.
In the end, the Huskies, who never trailed, triumphed, 60-54. The Huskies were 10-10 at the free-throw line, while the Wildcats went 13 for 24. This infuriated McConnell because his constituents, many of whom are ignorant and proud of it, firmly believe that they are entitled to free services from the federal government without having to pay for them.
President Obama, who, at the outset of March Madness, went live on ESPN to predict that Michigan State would end up in the Final Four and win the tournament, issued a statement promising the Democrats in the Michigan congressional delegation that he would arrange for Michigan to receive economic stimulus funds under a revived American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That statute, opposed by Republicans in 2009 simply because it was proposed by a Democratic president, saved the American economy from going off a cliff.
Upon hearing Obama’s announcement, McConnell, manfully pretending not to have been injured by Murphy’s robust and well-placed attacks, went apoplectic and had to be removed from the court by Tea Party operatives provided by Sen. Rand Paul (TP-Kentucky).
Interviewed in the locker room after the game, Napier, who has a basketball scholarship but who goes to bed hungry because Connecticut does not provide him with sufficient funds to fill his empty stomach, said he would consider going to Kentucky to play basketball if McConnell agrees to sponsor legislation guaranteeing students with athletic scholarships the right to unionize.
A spokesman for McConnell said the senator’s remarks in response were remarkably unprintable.
Write a comment