Villanova-Kansas went just about exactly as I expected. Twelve different Jayhawks got in the game, which tells you all you need to know. It’s not often you get to play the scrubs in the Final Four. They got off to a 10-0 start and built the lead to 19. You have to credit Villanova. Although out-manned and far behind, they played well enough to get the game within six at one point.

Although both teams played well, Kansas came up with a tough combination to beat – their big guy was 10-for-12 inside, and their outside shooters shot 54% from three-point range, including 6-for-7 from their first team All-American. To top that off, they ran a trapping, pressing defense without fouling much, and they didn’t turn the ball over a lot. Given all of that, they would have beaten any team today. If they can repeat that performance, they will go home with the trophy.

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Ol’ Coach K did not get his storybook ending. His traditional kinda-crosstown rival, UNC, managed to defeat him in his last game. The same team had already managed to defeat him in his last home game.

Saturday’s game could not have been closer. The teams were never far apart, and it could have gone either way at the end. It went UNC’s way because the ball bounced that way and they made some key plays in crunch time. It was their day. Duke might work the ball better, and they almost never turn it over (just 4 times to UNC’s 10), but UNC once again absolutely owned the glass. Armando Bacot was superlative again, with another game of 20+ boards, but his teammates also secured some clutch caroms. The team gathered in 50 misses off the glass.

There was some worrisome news toward the end for UNC. Robo-rebounder Armando Bacot appeared to turn his ankle with about five minutes to play. The big guy had to be helped off. He did come back to finish the game until he fouled out, but he was wincing and limping the whole time. In my opinion, they can’t challenge Kansas without him.

What about WITH him? Well, North Carolina has had an amazing run in this tournament for a #8 seed. They’ve already knocked off a #1 and a #2. They are underdogs, but don’t count them out.

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Kansas Jayhawks odds: bet 190 to win 100, 4.5 point favorites, over/under 153.5

They are some tough motherfuckers

What they have accomplished is little short of miraculous. That said, I think the worst is yet to come. Russia realized they were spread too thin to maintain all their supply lines, and that they had left themselves too vulnerable to ambushes from many directions. I feel sure that they will simply try a different strategy, perhaps by concentrating all their strength in one column in the east and overcoming Ukrainian territory with a blunt force approach, moving their line of control forward inch by inch, keeping supply lines open behind them, and thus eliminating vulnerable left and right flanks, until they power back to Kiiv.

I think the Ukrainians anticipated that exact strategy when they took out that fuel depot in Russia, near the Ukrainian border. They have to make it as difficult as possible for Russia to supply their forces with fuel, food and reinforcements.

If the Russians had run that play in the first place, they might have controlled half of Ukraine by now, but the strategy won’t work as effectively now because the Russians have lost a lot of equipment and the Ukrainians have had time to prepare. I’m guessing that the Russians originally felt it unnecessary to use such a long, drawn-out approach to get to Kiiv. They probably thought they could take the capital easily with their original strategy, then replace the government with some of Putin’s lackeys. It also appears that they thought some Ukrainians would welcome them and/or fail to resist. If there was ever any chance of that, it is now gone. Since the Russians started bombing civilian targets, the Ukrainians have become solidly unified against Russia, and totally convinced that they don’t want to be part of any country where the leadership indiscriminately kills children and bombs hospitals. Putin has convinced the Ukrainians that being independent is not just one of the many rational choices, like Puerto Rican independence, but is something worth dying for.

It has been a good month for funny men. Zelensky and Chris Rock have demonstrated that comedians can be as tough as nails.

(AKA “My Friend, The Traitor”)

Beautiful Valerie Kaprisky was a fixture in early 80s cinema, appearing in such famous efforts as Breathless (1982), The Year of the Jellyfish (1984), Aphrodite (1982) and La Femme Publique (1984). All of those films included lengthy Kaprisky nude scenes with substantial exposure. Although I was a big Kaprisky fan and have been researching nude scenes for nearly 30 years, I don’t remember this film at all. It just slipped by me. I must not be the only one who missed it, because it has only 133 votes on IMDb.

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Brainscan’s comments:

There is a story to the caps and clips of Maureen O’Sullivan in Tarzan and His Mate (1932). Most comments on the movie deal with the naked swimming scene done by Josephine McKim, who worked as Ms. O’Sullivan’s double in this movie. Turns out that was only one of two scenes with the Olympic champion swimmer as substitute for the lead actress; the second one has Tarzan’s mate, Jane, escaping from a leopard by jumping into a river, where a crocodile the size of Nebraska gives chase.


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In this scene you can see that even though Jane wears a skimpy outfit throughout the movie she does not go commando. A loin cloth covers her naughty bits.

All of that is relevant because a few online sources and a YouTube video claim that in a late scene, Ms. O’Sullivan unintentionally reveals her garden of infinite bliss as she kneels. To be sure, a couple of earlier scenes are ambiguous, when we get her skirt flies open for a frame or two, but for the one scene in question, as Jane fights off a bunch of hungry lions, it is ever so obvious she wears an undergarment.

But. In that same scene, It looks to me as though she might do a Vivien Leigh and give us a peek at her tasty hoots. Maybe. Perhaps. So, a bad news, good news situation – no accidental exposure of furry bits but there could be a peek worthy of a poke.


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