Upon seeing this, your first inclination may be that it is fake -- a joke.* No no. It's realer than real deal Holyfield, and at time of publication is still on the front page of merriam-webster.com.

*To be fair, it is hilarious like a joke.

(Hat tip to Card Chronicle -- the excellent SBN site for the University of Louisville Cardinals -- for discovery of this gem.)

I plan on writing more on tennis at a later date, where I will tell you all about Freshmen Brandon Fickey -- and other new additions to the team -- and his reputation for on-court McEnroe-esque outbursts, among other not-negative attributes. It appears that Mr. Fickey is doing his best to live up to his reputation. Some of you may be outraged by his behavior. And Coach Winterbotham is certainly not pleased. But I actually find it humorous. You see this in tennis all the time. For one of fourteen trillion possible examples, here is Marcos Baghdatis -- one of my favorite players, actually -- taking his frustration out on his racquets two weeks ago at the Australian Open. If you're reading this sentence and you haven't clicked on the link in the previous sentence, I think you should go back and do that. It will be worth one minute and seven seconds of your time. It is pretty funny.

After the jump, check out videos featuring Cuonzo Martin, Kenny Hall, Jerrone Maymon, Georgia highlight, and tennis highlights that unfortunately do not include temper tantrum footage.

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MONEY! The Worldwide Leader in Sports celebrated the 25th anniversary of the three point shot (at the NCAA level) by holding a competition to elect the greatest three point sharpshooter in College Hoops history. The masses let their voices be heard, and our own Chris Lofton now gets to wear this very cool crown. And it wasn't even a close finish (there will be no debates about hanging chads) as Lofton beat out the runner-up J.J. Reddick by over 10,000 votes. Go ahead and take a trip down memory lane (after the jump):

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All after the jump.  One stop shopping, baby!

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Head Coach Derek Dooley and Offensive Coordinator Jim Chaney met up in the film room on Sunday afternoon following Tennessee's 20-12 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs.  Luckily for us, the cameras were rolling.

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• So, admittedly, the headline was meant to reel you in.  But it wasn't inaccurate.  Check out the espn.com home page giving our homeboy Tyler Bray some love. And yes indeed there is Bear Grylls right next to him. You love it. I love it. We love it.
• Devrin Young has been given a mission and it is a simple one indeed.  'Protect the rock'...and then please pretty please maybe gain some yards too while said rock is securely stowed.
• Tennessee-Georgia game is sold out:  Are we gonna get six digits attendance for this game?  I hope so.  When was the last time we did that?  What happened to the good ole' days when we used to stuff 109,000 in there?  Luxury boxes, schmuxury schmoxes.  I much preferred being able to toss out a big number and impress my friends.
  
• Edward Ashcoff gets in front of the videocamera and then picks the Tennessee Volunteers to prevail. Now where was Chris Low when they asked if somebody wanted to pick the Vols?
• Jabari Greer has a blog.
• Tyler Bray wants wins, and he quite obviously wants nothing to do with a butt cut. Well, that makes two of us.  Get after it young man!
• Barbara Dooley really just is substantially funny on multiple different levels. If I were Derek Dooley, I would be a touch embarrassed too.
  

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Sophomore Quarterback Tyler Bray took some time out of his busy schedule yesterday to meet with the press and clarify what appeared to be some ambiguity -- and to quash any potential controversy -- arising from different remarks, made via twitter, on the subject of orange pants.

Bray: Guys, I don't really see why we need to meet at all.  My comments were clearly reconciliable and easily understandable.  It's like the media up and went full retard.  Have y'all not seen Tropic Thunder?  You never wanna go full retard!  And besides this is valuable time that I could be spending further improving my 40 time.  You know it improved from last year, right?  Oh...whatever.  I'm already here; let's get this over with.

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Your favorite post of the week is here.  Mr. Shephard had important stuff going on today, and so I agreed to take over the duties for today, and I'm already running late. Argh.  Oh well, y'all know the drill by now.  These picks are ATS, we deliver them to you in packs of six,  and they are quite obviously for entertainment purposes only because you'd be stupid to use them for more than that.

This week's post is brought to you by Aaron "The Hawk" Pryor. Read on if you dare.

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I'm certain that y'all won't be able to resist checking out this video feature on the making of Dooley's Pants, so I went ahead and put it right at the top.

Excellent piece from Andy Staples at SI.com about the Tennessee-Florida 2001 clash.  The locker room speech mentioned in the story is embedded directly below, and indeed it does appear as if John Henderson is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to inflict pain on bodies in blue uniforms.

• Gary Danielson has a lot of man-love for Tyler Bray.

• Jacques Smith is verse-a-tile and worth your while. 

• Vols look to simulate Swamp atmosphere.  Is Ben Hill Stadium really that much louder than Neyland?  We Tennessee fans need to step up our game if so.
  

• Comparing our current sophomore receiving duo to past greats who wore orange. Apparently Justin Hunter is a Celtics fan.  This is a good opportunity to say how much I despise the Celtics.
  

"Call us Ray Allen. We’re in a groove right now," Hunter said. "I’m not going to say we’re unstoppable, but we’re in a good place right now to keep it going."

I actually don't dislike Ray Allen, but if I was going to make a Ray Allen reference it would have been more like "Call us Ray Allen, 'cause we got game".  That would have been way better as it would have also been an indirect reference to Jesus Shuttlesworth.  Am I right, or am I right?

Alright y'all, it will be go time and show time before you know it.  So make like a sorority girl and "Get Excited!"

I'm here with Tyler Bray and Da'Rick Rogers, who I want to thank for joining me again. Tyler and Da'Rick could have been anywhere in the world this morning, but they're here with me...and I appreciate that.  We're also glad to be joined today by a first-time guest, senior tailback Tauren Poole.

Our guests today are going to walk us through the fine points of a crucial play from Saturday's contest against the visiting Cincinnati Bearcats.  Now we all loved Da'Rick's helmet-less touchdown catch -- and ESPN loved it enough to put it on their top ten plays list -- but I think that the touchdown with the game tied at 14 all with13 minutes to go in the second quarter proved to be a critical turning point in the game that really shifted momentum in favor of the Vols. So let's dive right in and give it the full-on breakdown.

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Before we go any further, go vote for Tyler Bray Capital One Cup Impact Performance of the Week.

Kind words aplenty for Tyler Bray and the Vols' offense generally

Mr. Bray received a helmet-sticker from the fine folks at the Worldwide Leader, a fancy award from the CFPA, an organization of which I was not previously familiar, a high grade from the KNS report card, the label of "dangerous" from CBSSports.com, and an even-cooler label too: The perfect weapon | Nooga.com.

In addition to breaking Peyton Manning's record for consecutive games with multiple touchdown passes, Bray and Company also hit a rather obscure statistical metric: the 400-100-100-100 club.

Da'Rick Rogers and Justin Hunter also got some love from the Worldwide Leader: Tennessee's dynamic receiving duo.

Lots more goodies after the jump.

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Prior to the opening series of the opening game against the Montana Grizzlies, talented Sophomore signal-caller Tyler Bray concocted a seemingly brilliant way to taunt the opposing defense -- and totally get them off their game, according to Bray -- while still staying within reasonable bounds of social decency.  Unfortunately for the lanky gunslinger from Kingsbury California, his planned taunting routine was not executed with the exacting precision of his downfield passes.

According to Da'Rick Rogers and Justin Hunter, the talented Sophomore receiving duo who joined their QB for this EXCLUSIVE behind-the-scenes interview, Bray attempted to sing the song "Country Roads" after the huddle broke and the Vols lined up for their first play following the muffed punt by the Grizzlies early in the first quarter.  "Bray was actually singing "Montana" instead of "Mountain Momma", said Rogers, "And, to be clear, he wasn't even doing it as a joke. He actually thought that "Montana" followed "West Virginia" in the song." 

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Links related to our perfectly coifed head football coach

Derek Dooley puts a gag order on his regionally famous mom, who is a true national treasure according to Clay Travis and apparently enjoys skinny-dipping in her spare time.

So we had ten little six or seven year olds for the birthday party and they were all at the pool and I jumped in and pulled my top down and I said, 'We're gonna skinnydip!' And they all whipped their bathing suits off and my daughter was horrified. She said, 'I cannot believe I got calls about my child's birthday party that her grandmother skinnydipped with all the kids.'" "I just have to keep'em loose, baby, I keep 'em loose,"

More praise from Dooley on the recently oft-praised freshman Curt Maggitt and the demeanor of both Maggitt and his freshmen linebacking partner-in-crime A.J. Johnson.

Dooley waxes philosophical about #opportunityisnowhere.  I believe there to be a 63% chance that Dooley concocted this entire line of rhetoric just to help the program save a bit of face.  But he is convincing, and many will find him persuasive.  Just not me.

About last night

Two SEC teams were in action yesterday evening.  The Mississippi State Bulldogs went against the Memphis Tigers -- who are just all kinds of terrible at football -- and appropriately gave them their whuppins.  The University of Kentucky Wildcats, on the other hand, struggled mightily with the HIlltoppers of Western Kentucky -- a team that has shown some improvement over the last two years, but who nobody is mistaking for the '85 Bears. 

Miscellany

Bruce Pearl accepts a local VP of marketing position, turning down an offer from the NBA Development League.  I think Bruce will do well in this position, and I wish him the best of luck. 

Bruce Feldman leaves The Worldwide Leader and join forces with CBS.  I'm starting to think that there might just be some truth to the ESPN-as-evil-empire rhetoric.

With the Texas A&M addition essentially being a done deal, and it seeming unlikely that a 14th school will be added in time for the 2012 campaign, scheduling becomes tricky and creative solutions will need to be concocted

Former Vol assistant Willie Mack Garza leaves USC for reasons likely different than the officially-given reasons.

I made it up to last year's open and had a great time seeing guys like Nadal, Fed, Djoker, and Murray. You know, guys who are pretty decent at tennis. (Actually, Murray was completely horrendous at last year's Open, but the others were quite good.)

A huge missing ingredient from last year's Open was the absence of Juan Martin Del Potro (delpo), who was the defending champ. Delpo is back in the mix this year, and even though he hasn't had the most impressive hard court season, all it takes is a couple good matches under your belt to get back in top form. And, when in top form, Delpo is arguably the best hardcourt player in tennis. And if it wasn't for the Djoker's obscene current level, I would have removed the "arguably" from the prior sentence. But can he win this tournament? These and other questions will be addressed Right. About. Now.


Contenders:

1. Novak Djokovic: Djokovic is the heavy favorite because he is simply playing better tennis than anybody else right now. And he is the only player in the draw who is immune to the random upset by a player not named Fed, Rafa, Delpo, or Murray. Outside of those players, nobody can beat Djokovic. You may notice that the best players in Djoke's quadrant are Gasquet, Berdych, Tipsy, and Monfils. You may also notice that none of those players are named Fed, Rafa, Delpo, or Murray. It logically follows that Djokovic has been appropriately penciled into the semifinals by yours truly.

To the extent you have convinced yourself that any of Gasquet, Berdych, Tipsy, or Monfils can beat Djoker, allow me to introduce you to my good friend Mr. Reality.

Djoker will meet Mardy Fish in the semi's. More on that in a second.

2. Rafa Nadal:
Many of you may note that something has been off with Rafa since Wimbledon, and that he hasn't looked like himself. I would agree, but I also don't read much into it. I mean, has Rafa ever won a U.S. Open tune-up tournament? Which is to, more specifically, ask: has Rafa ever won Montreal or Cincy? Let me know if I'm wrong, but I don't think he has.

What we also know about Rafa is that he is very much a player that needs to get his reps in. With continued reps muscle memory starts to produce better shots, better shots produce wins, which in turn results in increased confidence and increased opportunities for continued reps. You can rinse, lather, and repeat this cycle with Rafa, and eventually he'll find himself in top form, where he is basically unbeatable. His unbeatableness will end either with an injury or just fatigue from the grind. And he'll have to start the cycle from the beginning. This is just how Rafa is.

The reason the above paragraph is important in assessing his chances at winning this tournament, is that Rafa has a pretty pedestrian draw. Check out his quadrant and find somebody who has a chance of beating him? Youzhny? No. Roddick? No. Ferrer? No.

So what will happen is that Rafa will keep getting better with each match, and then after he beats Ferrer in a 4-set match to get to the semifinals, "emo Rafa" will have been completely replaced by "confident Rafa".

3. Mardy Fish:
Fish and Federer are in the same quadrant. If they end up meeting in the quarters, who do you think wins? If you answered Federer, you are operating on the assumption that his form will have improved by the time that match takes place. Because if Fish had played Federer at any point this summer, the evidence points to the conclusion that he would have won.

I really like the way Fish is playing right now, and so I predict he will make it to the semi's. But once there, he will likely be matched up against a not-so-shabby opponent by the name of Novak. Fish and Novak recently played in the Montreal final, and Fish showed that he can play with the Djoker. By no means was he outclassed, and indeed right up until the very end, Fish was in a position to win the match. If they end up playing again in the Semi’s, I definitely give Fish a decent chance of winning. To be clear, I give Djokovic much better chances of winning, but a Fish victory would not be shocking to me. To put it another way, at present form, Fish would beat Djokovic twice for every 9 matches they played. Djokovic prevails 7-2 in a best of 9 series.

4. Andy Murray:
I know. I know. But he's in good form, and the most dangerous guy in his quadrant is Delpo. I mentioned before how good Delpo is on hard courts when he is in top form, but he is just SO FAR away from top form right now that I think it would be unreasonable to conclude that he is going to be able to get there in 4 matches.

Good form though Murray may be in, think about this for a second. Or, rather, just do a little exercise with me. Close your eyes and then picture in your imagination Andy Murray beating Rafa Nadal in a grand slam semifinal. ::waiting 5 seconds::

You couldn't do it could you? I couldn't. I mean, I could for a second, but the scene looked so not believable that I started giggling. Sorry Andy Murray.  That wasn't personal, I promise.

5. Delpo:
See the Andy Murray section above, but assume Delpo was able to pull out a win. He would likely have Rafa in the semifinals, and at that point would be bursting with confidence. He would have a decent -- or maybe even good -- chance of winning that match. From there, we would be able to say that he is indeed at top form, and we would likely be seeing a lot of that punishing punishing Delpo forehand where it appears that the ball has been shot out of a damn cannon.

I'm not picking Delpo, but I can't rule him out because he's got that punchers chance.

6. Roger Federer:
I'm putting him this low, not because I think he is the 6th best player in the world, but because he already upset Djokovic this year by playing his best tennis of the year and it isn't happening again. Nobody's beating Djokovic twice this year. Mark that down.

That covers it. Don't talk yourself into anybody else, and I wouldn't even talk myself into Federer if I were you.

In gambling terms, this tournament is really all about Djokovic vs. The Field.  If it were even money, I would take the field over Djokovic, but Djokovic is definitely the heavy favorite.

My unsurprising pick: Novak Djokovic

Rhyne Williams -- who is my homeboy -- plays today at 3pm (eastern) against Steve Johnson out of USC for the NCAA singles title (and the accompanying wildcard to the U.S. Open).  Williams prevailed yesterday against friend and fellow Volunteer (and Tennessean), Tennys Sandgren, in the inaugural All-Vol semifinal. Biggie ups to Tennys for a great tournament.

Rhyne has played Steve Johnson before.  He in fact beat the moustached villain in November at the USTA/ITA indoor finals to secure that title.  Good luck to Rhyne today.  He's been in Palo Alto for two weeks now, so hopefully he ends the trip on a good note and comes back with some hardware.

Shall we use this as an open thread for the match?  Done and done.

Live blog provided by UTSports.com.

Cash money fish-eye lens live video stream.

Go Vols!

And Boom goes the dynamite!  

Even though I did previously speculate about this, I didn't expect Rhyne Williams or Tennys Sandgren to roll in their quarterfinals matches with quite the ease that they both did.  Both guys are playing really well, and now they have to play each other.  I have very few rules in life, but one of those rules is that when two Vols are playing each other the semifinals of the NCAAs, I put up an open thread.  

This match begins at 3pm (eastern).  Links to appropriate streaming/live-blogging options will be posted prior to the match via update to this post.

UPDATE: Link to live-blog provided by UTsports.com.

Link to live video stream of the match.

Stellar sophomores Rhyne Williams and Tennys Sandgren -- the in-state recruits who shared a court throughout the season as doubles partners, and who now share the prestigious and emphatic title of "All-American" --  both prevailed in straight sets with Rhyne and Sandgren winning 7-5, 6-4 and  6-4, 7-6(4), respectively.

Now a very interesting situation presents itself.  Very interesting indeed.  Rhyne and Sandgren, if they both advance out of the quarterfinals, will meet in the semifinals and play for the right to play for NCAA championship.  This would be both unfortunate (because somebody has to lose) and quite cool (because we would know a Vol would be advancing to the final) all at the same time.  But please don't think I'm jumping the gun or inadvertently jinxing my school.  No No....by no means is an All-Vol semifinal matchup a sure thing.  And I'm aware of that; I'm just thinking positive.  

Sandgren squares off at 4pm (eastern) against Marcel Thiemann who, among other things, is (a) a sophomore (b) from Germany, who (b) happens to be Ole Miss' top player, and (d) very likely loves David Hasselhoff.   I have no head-to-head evidence between these guys to help inform an analysis, but they are closely ranked to one another, and so I assume it will be a competitive match.  

Rhyne, as I touched upon a bit yesterday, is matched up against Stanford's Bradley Klahn.  This match begins at 3pm (eastern).  Klahn is the defending NCAA champ, and will be the obvious crowd favorite.  But that is no reason for you the reader -- and hopefully you're a Vols fan, Mr. ReaderFace -- to think negative thoughts about this upcoming showdown.  Rhyne is the higher ranked player, and is playing well.  These two apparently haven't played each other since they were 14 years old.  But I happen to be in possession of some evidence that suggests their respective games will not be unfamiliar to each other.  

(At a junior tournament three years ago.  Practicing together.)

JP Smith gave, Steve Johnson, the #1 overall seeded player a real scare before eventually falling 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-7(2). The doubles tandem of Smith/Concik then lost 3-6, 4-6 to Kevin King and Juan Spir from Georgia Tech.  Tough ending to a great career at UT for JP Smith.  But the tough ending should in no way, shape, or form reflect negatively on the great great career that JP Smith had as a University of Tennessee Volunteer, and all the many positives (e.g. the most wins (combining doubles and singles) in the history of a program that has produced some very good players.  JP Smith is one of the very best UT has ever had.  

For you visual learners, here is the singles bracket as it stands at publication.

After the major bummer that was the 3-4 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs in the seriously intense Satuday round of 8 team match, the Vols -- specifically, the players who earned themselves a spot in the singles and doubles tournaments -- are rested, refreshed, and have come out in the first two rounds stroking like Clarence Carter.  

The Volunteers have three representatives in the singles tournament; namely, Rhyne Williams, JP Smith, and Tennys Sandgren.  All three advanced to the round of 16.  Sandgren was the story of the first round.  He scored a major upset in dispatching 13th seeded Reid Carleton from Duke with a convincing 6-3, 6-3 result.  And then good fortune smiled upon him when the #2 overall seed Alex Domijan out of UVA -- who was in Sandgren's portion of the bracket -- was majorly upset* in the first round by Sebastian Fanselow out of Pepperdine.  Sandgren faces off against Fanselow today in what I consider to be a very winnable match.  If he prevails, another exceedingly winnable match awaits him in the round of 8.  Tennys definitely got a touch lucky with this draw, so let's see if the sophomore with the phonetically appropriate first name can capitalize and advance to the semifinals.

*And when I say he was majorly upset, I am referring not to his emotional state of mind after the match, but rather to the fact that the result was not of the expected variety.  That isn't to say he wasn't pissed.  

Rhyne Williams -- who, I should note, is my homeboy and should be your homeboy too -- was the story of the second round.  He found himself across the net from UGA's Javier Garrapiz, who he beat 7-5, 7-5 on Saturday in the above-mentioned Saturday team match.  It wasn't quite so close this time.  Williams earned himself two breadsticks** by making quick work of Garrapiz in a 6-1, 6-1 romping.  Tomorrow he faces Guillermo Gomez out of Georgia Tech with an opportunity to earn himself a date in the round of 8 with last year's singles champion, Stanford's Bradley Klahn.  Please pretty please don't allow the whole "reigning singles champion" thing to force you into any rash pessimistic opinions.  A wise man once said: "when Rhyne is on, Rhyne is the best player in the NCAA."  And this was, to be clear, a very very wise man we're talking about here.  

**Like bagels, but just not quite as delicious.  

Williams and Sandgren could potentially meet in the semifinals.    

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Okay, this match already started, but better late than never.  Again, there are two ways (of which I am aware) to follow the action.  The less visually pleasing but more accessible option is the live blog provided by UTSports.com.  Streaming video is provided here by the upstanding folks at Stanford.  It's not going to work for everybody (e.g., it wasn't making it through my work firewall), but it's worth giving ti a shot.

Go Vols!