Lexington Conquered: Day 2

Picture this: A 10-year-old kid on at his first baseball game going up to ask his favorite player for an autograph.

This was 100 times better.

Watching Hirsch go up to his idol Gus Johnson for an interview and come back with both phone number and e-mail address was priceless. Too bad he can't work that magic at Smoke's.

Anyway, media day in Lexington was fantastic.

We put in about 12 hours of work from interviews to observations at practice to yelling at Wheeling to finish his story. Then, when the work was done at roughly quarter to 11, it was time to hit the town.

Thing is, being a Wednesday night, being Lexington and being Spring Break, there were ZERO restaurants open. We ended up at a place called the Pita Pit, where we enjoyed booming techno music and the service of a tattooed hipster-dude with a bare midriff.

Then, it was time for the adventure. We sought the George Costanza-like trifecta. However, except for sandwiches, sex and TV, it was ice cream, bourbon and UK girls that we were looking for. The results: no, yes and sadly, no.

So with the Derby staple in hand, it was back to the hotel to get a good night's sleep in preparation for the game.

Here are your top 10 media day phrases:

10. Go out there and compete
9. Stick to our gameplan
8. Inside-outside balance
7. They're a very good team
6. We have to work hard
5. We've got to play our game
4. They're a very smart team
3. Take that one day at a time
2. We don't ever look past a team
1. "I like to bang. Steve likes to bang." -- Mark Zoller

Speaking of recycled phrases, it's good to see that clich's have made their way across the pond.

When Antanas Kavaliauskas was asked the following question.

You and a lot of your teammates have big size advantages over Penn. Do you plan to try to exploit that?

Here was the answer he gave:

We're just going to play our game how we've played before. That's how we're playing is play like we play.

Basketball games watched: 9, including one classic in the Association that was somehow still unwatchable

Stat of the day:
9: Steve Bilsky's over-under bet for number of questions the DP would ask in the Penn press conference
10: Questions actually asked by the DP, so if you had the over, congratulations you're a winner