Monday Look Back: It helps to be self-aware

I don't watch American Idol, not regularly at least. But one night I was flipping through the channels and I came upon one of the episodes where they were conducting tryouts in some city, and I really enjoyed seeing those poor schmucks stand in line for hours before making it to auditions and embarrassing themselves on national television.

It looks like Eric Gordon was worth the wait for the Hoosiers. (US Presswire)

It was high comedy.

I mean, you had these people, thousands of them lined up around a building, and they all thought they could sing like Amy Winehouse (when she's sober). But they couldn't, of course, because if they could they wouldn't have been lined up around a building, but instead already in a recording studio, perhaps even drinking and doing blow with Amy Winehouse.

Which brings me to Arkansas-Monticello.

(Yes, I'm going to tie this to basketball. Just watch.)

Arkansas-Monticello is a Division II school. Like most Division II schools, it has a basketball program filled with players who are the equivalent of American Idol contestants, which is to say they are players who believe they could have been something more if they had ever gotten an opportunity to get on the stage with the big boys. On Sunday, that opportunity came for Arkansas-Monticello in the way of a game at Texas, and the Boll Weevils responded by missing 30 of their first 33 shots while the Longhorns sank 16 3-pointers and cruised to a 100-52 victory.

It was William Hung-esque.

"All our kids come into school thinking they should have been Division I," Arkansas-Monticello coach Mike Newell told reporters afterward. "Now they know why they're Division II."

God bless you, Coach Newell.

Thanks so much for keeping it real.

You're the Simon Cowell of basketball.

And here's the rest of the Monday Look Back.

Best game of the weekend: Got home in time late Saturday to catch the Virginia-Arizona game on television, and Sean Singletary reminded me why he's a star. Despite struggling from the field (he finished 6-of-19), the senior guard sank two free throws with 82 seconds remaining to break a tie, then drained a 15-foot jumper with 39 seconds left to secure an eventual 75-72 victory. In other words, Singletary wasn't great most of the game, but he made a play and a shot when his team needed him to make a play and a shot, and that's the very definition of a star, in my eyes.