Water Cooler Talk 2-7-22

After an hour-long meeting that could’ve been settled with two emails, you walk over to the water cooler for a little chit-chat with coworkers. Immediately you find yourself bombarded with personal tragedies that are better suited for a therapist. Need a topic of conversation where you don’t robotically respond with ‘sorry to hear about that?’ I present to you Water Cooler talk. A column that simultaneously informs you on the latest news in Mountain West men’s hoops while also boosting your small talk experiences.

Game of the Week

With recent snowstorms all over the country and the tornado in Alabama, Bill won’t shut up about exhilarating events occurring in the atmosphere. Admittedly it’s cool, just not when Bill’s talking about it so you interrupt him by saying “How bout them Cowboys!”

Whoops wrong Cowboys, I mean these Cowboys:

Clean sweep through the competition this week, handling Colorado State, Boise State and Fresno State.

Tuesday night’s OT win against the Rams was a smorgasbord of ‘no way’ and ‘you gotta be kidding me’ that concluded with a torrential downpour of fans in neon green balloon hats and dijon mustard overalls.

The game saw 16 lead changes and 10 ties. Below is a quick synopsis that will put your brain in a blender.

• Wyoming up 66-60 with 2:42 left, then a David Roddy layup sparks a 9-2 run for the Rams making it 69-68 with 1:09 left
• After some missed shots, CSU has the ball with 30 seconds left and is one shot away from winning, when Isaiah Stevens gets caught up in an “Interstellar” world where time doesn’t exist and forgets about the shot clock, leading to a turnover.
• Wyoming’s Graham Ike drives the ball to the rim and draws a foul, hitting both free throws giving the Cowboys a one-point lead.
• With no timeouts, Roddy goes coast to coast and gets fouled at the rim. He hit the first and missed the second, forcing OT.

If you’re out of breath don’t worry this was a lot, totally not the New Year’s weight-loss resolutions you failed to follow through with.

With the slugfest continuing into overtime Drake Jeffries called the game with Wyoming up 76-78.

Big shoutout to Hunter Maldanado for scoring a career-high 35 points making it two consecutive games with at least 30.

“Fraudulent?”

Susan is giving you the skinny on the Kanye West and Kim Kardashian drama. You’re bored to tears, why? You knew back in 2013 when the “Bound 2” music video dropped it would end in a dumpster fire. After 15 seconds you blurt out “San Diego State is a fraud.”

I’d like to preface with in order to be a fraud you have to be solid, in which SDSU certainly is. However, they wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight with Wyoming or Boise State come Mountain West tournament time.

Friday night saw them losing to Colorado State by one point (charge call will be addressed later) in what was a big prove-it game.

They scored 18 points in the first half, shooting 6-28 FG’s and 1-8 from three, not hitting double digits until 4:36 remaining in the half.

Matt Bradley’s 18 second-half points put the Aztecs within one, but there are moments where the offense looked like insomniacs who’ve lost all sight of reality. On one hand, kudos for nearly coming back after being down 20 with 10 minutes left. On the other hand, you can’t play badly for 30 minutes and expect to win.

DAVID RODDY

Jim is your classic ‘I found a new hobby guy’. Last week it was archery now it’s birdwatching. In between yawns, you look down at his left hand and notice no hardware between his pinky and middle finger-shocking. With no regard for his feelings, you interject with “David Roddy!”. Smart move soldier.

I used to judge Michael Scott for admiring Ryan, Michael Scott, and Todd Packer, I now understand this after watching David Roddy play.

This week he put up 22 points against Wyoming and 23 against San Diego State while shooting a combined 6 of 10 from three, tacking on four steals and three blocks. None of these compare to his game-winner.

Let’s talk about this post fade real quick though.

SDSU’s Aguek Arop is expecting a 250-pound orange bowling ball to back him down so he plays soft in anticipation of it, then Roddy spins like the Tasmanian Devil and elevates like the Black Mamba. Unbelievable.

If you need someone to run it in on 4th and goal from the one– Roddy is your guy. If you need someone to replace Natalie Portman in Black Swan– Roddy is also your guy.

Down Goes Boise

Lisa is very proud of her son for earning his fifth badge in Boy Scouts. You’re physically across from her, automatically programmed to nod and say “ah interesting” every 5 seconds, but mentally you are ruminating over Boise’s losing streak getting snapped.

This is a eulogy for the hottest entity in Idaho since the big Blowup Fires in 1910 (too soon, I know).

Just like the guy in Super Size Me who stopped eating McDonald’s after 30 days, Boise State’s all-time 14 best 14-game winning streak came to an end at the hands of Wyoming.

Boise State had to play a Cowboys team that was undefeated at home and went head-on with a freight train of energy. They held their own through the entire contest and were down 66-63 with 52 seconds left. But, Wyoming went 6-8 from the free throw line to keep the game from slipping away. No one’s opinion of Boise changed, with Abu Kigab’s 26 points and Tyson Degenhart shooting 3 of 6 from three, there’s no reason to think they would slip. Even ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt considered them a tournament team following the contest.

They took a tough loss off the chin, rubbed some dirt on it and beat San Jose State in the following game.

In the famous words of Cam’ron in Paid in Full, “You’ll be aight, you tough right?”

Good Call or Bad Call?

Uh oh, AJ’s back. He’s showing you the Tinder profile of the girl he’s planning on taking out for Valentine’s Day, pure smoke show as the youts would say. Thankfully you have the controversial call in the San Diego State and Colorado State game from Friday night to change the conversation and deflect all feelings of jealousy.

Here’s the play that I’ll let you be the judge of before I offer up my input.

In the heat of the battle, I’m always going to be on the let refs swallow the whistle side, however, this was blatant. Clearly, arms were leaning forward like fronds on a tree and Bradley’s shot path was interfered with. Aztec fans have the right to be angry, but at the same time, if play in the first half was improved…

Also, Bradley clearly took three steps…

God Bless if you made it this far. Another phenomenal week in the books.