The Pitt News intramural team pops it like no other, what? Huh!

Sunday mornings aren’t supposed to be like this — they’re supposed to be about sleeping in… Sunday mornings aren’t supposed to be like this — they’re supposed to be about sleeping in until noon, recovering from hangovers and then watching sports all day.

This was better, though. It was so much better than all of that. For six weeks, my Sunday mornings involved intramural basketball and it was a wild ride.

Occupying the bottom of the 11 a.m. Sunday time slot for intramural basketball this semester was my team, The Oakland United, a conglomeration of various Pitt News personnel. A counterproductive offense — with more turnovers that field goals made — merged with a laughable defense for a 1-5 record, most losses coming in blowout fashion and the only win coming by forfeit.

“If we have everybody show up, and we play a team that isn’t very good, and we shoot the ball real well and they miss a lot of shots, then we will win,” we would say on a regular basis. Sundays around the office became pretty unbearable, and the press was just tenacious — but the memories were priceless, some of which I will never forget.

There was the time we played “The Quips,” a clever name that actually disguised a team full of Pitt’s football players. One guy drained 3s from every conceivable spot on the floor, his teammates screaming “J.J. Redick!” every time he pulled up. His name was Tyler … Tyler something, and he seemed real proud.

Then there was Charles Spencer, who outscored our team on his own. The 6-foot-5, 330-pound “center” did what he wanted with us. He posted us up, meaning all of us at the same time, or he stepped outside and hit fade-away 3s over our tiny, outstretched hands. I don’t think we actually stopped them, per se, from scoring; they just kind of missed shots.

But Charles respected us, as we later found out, saying, “Those cats had some heart.” Thanks, Charles, we appreciated the beat down. I can honestly say it was the most fun I had ever had while losing by more than 30 points.

And then, there was the funniest game in the history of intramural sports.

Playing a team known to the league only as Game Time, the Oakland United sought to close out its campaign with a win in the final week. I scored a reverse layup to even the score at two early on, igniting the crowd (of about two people) and pumping up the team.

How quickly things fell apart, though, as we were unable to withstand the ensuing 16-0 run our opponents put together. We eventually dug ourselves a 24-point first-half hole as I gazed longingly at the numbers on the cheap scoreboard changing rapidly on Game Time’s side and not our own. Defeat was inevitable, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t go out with a bang.

Still searching for his first points of the season, our team’s designated player/coach, Matt Wein, never quit and, ultimately, got what he was looking for.

With the outcome no longer in doubt, many of us had abandoned the concept of playing hard, but not Matt Wein. In the game’s waning moments, the senior snatched an offensive rebound from the outstretched arms of two Game Timers before softly laying it in off the glass in a way that would have made even Bill Raftery proud.

But Wein wasn’t finished just yet. Moments later, The Oakland United continued its offensive prowess by entering the ball into the high post. My roommate received the pass, dribbled by one defender and went up for a jump shot, a mid-range shot that our team so often missed and so seldom rebounded.

He was hacked, however, by two defenders, slapped hard enough across the wrist for even the other courts to hear. We all leered at the ref with a “You have got to be kidding me!” look in our eyes. We let it go though, sauntering back down the court to ready ourselves for the challenge of playing defense on the other end.

Not Matt Wein, though. Not on this day.

“Watch the g-dd-mn game,” he bellowed from the left side of the court. The one ref, for whom the remark was clearly intended, for, looked puzzled and then immediately began searching for the culprit. He fixated himself, rightfully so, on Wein, and proceeded to stare him down.

“Yeah, you,” Wein came back with, an embittered resonance to his voice. Wein was slammed with a technical foul, another first of the season for him. Again, however, he wasn’t done just yet.

“What!” he screamed at the ref, while popping his jersey at him. While the fact that Wein was the only one on the court in a jersey is laughable in itself, merely possessing the instinct to pop at that moment was a thing of beauty.

He was, obviously, hit with his second technical and was tossed from the game, leaving both teams, including the second ref, paralyzed with laughter. He made his way off the court, but in many ways he never left it because it was talked about the rest of the afternoon. He was later greeted with a standing ovation at The Pitt News office,

We went on to lose the game. Game Time was too much for us to handle, primarily because of their ability to put the ball in the basket on a consistent basis. But I think we all learned something that day and not just that jerseys should be worn at every intramural basketball game. I learned that I am real [expletive] proud of this team.

Geoff Dutelle is the assistant sports editor of The Pitt News and he will forever refer to Matt Wein as “The Big Popper.” T him up at gmd8@pitt.edu.