The Essential Bull Run Glossary: Volume 7

It's been a long time since we've run an update to The Essential Bull Run Glossary. Originally a project just to document the long history of inside jokes here and in the UB internet fandom, and then an update of terms that I missed (and in-between the muse for a poor imitation), this update - the seventh volume - is the first to run as the project was originally envisioned: a constantly-updating reference to our commenters' in-jokes.

Here, we've got the new additions from the last 10 months or so. Read on, and click through on the sidebar for past volumes.

INTERNATIONAL SENSATION

Before and after the NLI signing of softball's Courtney Gilbert, I've loudly advocated for UB to aggressively recruit Southern Ontario in all sports. Only Northern Illinois among MAC schools enjoys proximity to such a population center, and they have more competitors there than UB in Toronto.

Anyway, when Trena Peel announced Gilbert's NLI to join UB, she hailed her as an "International Sensation," which your intrepid narrator hyped up a bit for you, the skeptical reader, to roll your eyes. Since then a few things have happened.

(1) Gilbert may legitimately be an international standout. She made the Canadian Junior National Team this summer, hit .353 at the U19 World Championships, led Canada to their best-ever finish at the tournament, and was named to the player pool for the Senior National Team.

(2) Every Canadian student-athlete is now hailed as an INTERNATIONAL SENSATION in our comments. Chardae Henry is Cross Country's fastest-ever freshman? INTERNATIONAL SENSATION. Kassidy Kidd hits nothing but posts and crossbars? INTERNATIONAL SENSATION.

I fear for these devoted commenters once Tennis kicks more and more into action.

DIG DEEPER TIM!!!

It's a shame that entries in the Glossary come in all caps, because this is always in all caps. DIG DEEPER TIM!!! is a remnant of the story that will never die: The Firing of Todd Kress. The Firing of Todd Kress ignited one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen on this site: Buffalo Bulls Volleyball Conspiracy Theorists.

Flooded by new accounts and he-said, she-said allegations, we could only really watch. In all of this, a Kress supporter turned his sights on us - it's the most recent incident of REAL JOURNALISTS (see Volume 5). The essence of the point changed from Kress' firing to Reed Sunahara's hiring to Reed Sunahara's qualifying for the MAC Tournament to Reed Sunahara's surprise departure for West Virginia, and in the end he didn't really know what he wanted to say other than "Kathy Twist bad Reed Sunahara bad Todd Kress poops solid gold," but his messages were always accompanied by DIG DEEPER TIM!!!

Eventually we figured out what Reed Sunahara had done that was so egregious and we shrugged. We've never had any success peeling any more back from Todd Kress and we shrug.

WITHOUT REGAN?

Sometimes, you have a cool job in the largest sports media outlet in the region, which you and your coworkers use as much to put yourselves on a pedestal and belittle others like grandmas playing bridge as you do to knowledgeably talk sports. Sometimes you don't know anything about the best basketball team in the region. Sometimes you admit in an article that you just attended your first game in years - in February - and everyone chuckles at your "observations" that have been plainly evident to everyone all season.

Will Regan proved late in the season that he deserved more floor time than he got. But until the last five-ish games of the year, he wasn't a tremendously critical player for the Bulls. Sometimes, you go on your weird public access-quality TV show that you've set up even though you work in print media and provide one of the best soundbites of the season in expressing your utter disbelief that UB could possibly be any good in 2015-16 after the graduation of Will Regan. Jaw to the floor, eyebrows to the ceiling, and all.

Sometimes you spend the evening following Buffalo's MAC semifinal win crowing in a Cleveland bar about your longtime fandom.

DIRECT TV UB / CABLE UB

Direct TV has now expanded this ad campaign so much that I'm not sure this one will survive, but it was once a big hit in our game threads. I had to look up when it originated, but OF COURSE it was from the first CMU game when Keno Davis absolutely cleaned Bobby Hurley's clock in halftime adjustments. It's hard to remember given the eight-game win streak to close the season, but the first two-thirds of MAC play in 2015 were dreadfully inconsistent and were characterized by UB being hit-and-miss at holding a lead and incapable of erasing a deficit.

Unfortunately, we're now seeing plenty of hit and miss from the football team despite the 2-1 start, so this gets some play.

NUIRIANKH'D

Nuiriankhing is the more contemporary, more basketball-minded version of the IKE NDUKA TREATMENT. As a senior, Auraum Nuiriankh went from a below-average starter but starter nonetheless for Reggie Witherspoon to a deep bench body who barely ever saw the floor for Bobby Hurley. Nuiriankh'd was coined in an attempt to figure out why Will Regan fell so far in the rotation his senior year.

FOOTBALL IS FOOTBALL

It's our very own Zen koan, what NEXT BULL IN could have become but never did. Say it sagely enough and you sound smart, because knowledge is power (France is Bacon). FOOTBALL IS FOOTBALL. Say it loudly enough and you can't lose.

Once LL COOL COACH's justification for confidence in the jump from DIII to FBS, FOOTBALL IS FOOTBALL has left any concrete use or definition and entered a Dali phase. Clocks and whatnot are melting? FOOTBALL IS FOOTBALL. Playcalling has you confused? FOOTBALL IS FOOTBALL. Russell Cicerone scores another goal? FOOTBALL IS FOOTBALL. It's the Swiss Army Knife of Bull Run.

It's still unclear if FOOTBALL IS FOOTBALL will join THUNDERDAN, DIG DEEPER TIM!!!, RIGHTSHARK, and a few others as a perpetually all-caps term.

LL COOL COACH

This one is self-explanatory. When you think about it, Lance Leipold and LL Cool J are pretty much the same person. Sometimes I'm not even sure which is the former rapper turned NCIS:LA actor and which is the uber-successful college coach. Hell, just last week I was watching UB and a friend said "Hey, isn't that the rapper who collaborated with Boyz 2 Men on 'Hey Lover' in 1995?"

I had to sadly inform he was wrong and it was in fact Lance Leipold, but it's an understandable mistake. We've all made it once or twice. LL Cool J has to be pretty ticked by now of people interrupting his work on-set to talk Matt Blanchard's pro prospects.

MYSTERY MAGIC ESPN DEAL

Jon Steinbrecher, MAC Overlord Commissioner, somehow negotiated a new, FOIL-proof media rights deal with ESPN. Nobody knows the contents, but all of a sudden ESPN owns everything. Gone are the free volleyball and wrestling streams. Gone are the free Olympic streams from across the conference. In is the sublicensing of our games to the American Sports Network, which isn't a real Network so much as it is a collection of time slots on channels no one has ever heard of, and can't possibly be American because it sucks too much. Still in are the midweek games, which people who actually attend games hate, but appeal to vague, unquantifiable (see: FOIL-proof above) concepts of visibility and publicity. Embrace the cheap, forced overuse of the hashtag #MACtion, sheeple fans!

Soccer games are at least free for now.

Somehow, the MAC is making more money out of this, but nobody knows how, and we've gone from some things being behind a paywall to nearly everything being behind one, which is bad no matter how low of a paywall ESPN3 actually is. The only kind-of benefit is UB being in the first wave of schools to start pumping out content and get things like volleyball and National Signing Day coverage on there.

STEPHANIE MONDAY TO FRIDAY REID

Not all nicknames are pun based, and not all nicknames are 140-character Twitter friendly. Not all nicknames are chaste. When a 5'6" freshman joins the Bulls midseason just weeks after graduating high school, within four games seizes control of the point guard position, goes on to play 28 minutes a night while scoring 7 points and dishing 3.5 assists, and electrifies an at times stagnant offense with supreme court vision, well, when that happens - I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, it's so obvious - all I can think of is Samuel Jackson.

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RIGHTSHARK

Let's stay with Women's Basketball. It is a crime against Kristen Sharkey that Katy Perry didn't get the Super Bowl Halftime gig until Sharkey's senior year. With only half a season of eligibility left, shark puns were culturally relevant. If Left Shark attracted attention for being an unfocused, clumsy doof, Right Shark was the exact opposite, unheralded but critically important. Kristen Sharkey was double teamed all year long, still found six-ish minutes a game to absolutely take over, and was jobbed of a spot on the All-MAC First Team. We probably won't be able to use the RIGHTSHARK nickname much even with her around as an assistant, and that's a shame.

JON JONES' WRISTWATCH

Jon Jones won two MAC Championships this year without taking off his wristwatch. Jon Jones won a National Championship without taking off his wristwatch. He's a giant man and he has an appropriately giant wristwatch and he apparently does not care that he's throwing little heavy things really far, or at least he does not care more than he cares about being punctual.

I deeply respect Jon Jones' commitment to punctuality. I can't even wear a wristwatch to type or write. Or eat. Or do anything.