It's taken me 21 years, but I've finally discovered the secret to surviving the barren desert known as bye-week Saturday.
It's called Frankie's Fun Park. It's in Raleigh, and it's fantastic.
When my friends suggested the daytrip, I was more than skeptical. But I'm a senior now, life's short and I decided to roll with the punches. Besides, it didn't take long to realize that Frankie's is where the cool kids are.
And by cool kids, I mean that when my posse and I emerged from the laser-tag arena en route to the Icee machines, Brian Zoubek was there, wandering the arcade.
(Poor Brian. It's hard to be stealth when you're a 7-foot-1, 280-pound college center gallivanting among throngs of eight year-olds.)
After catching a glimpse of the junior big man, though, my columnist instincts kicked in and I knew what I had to do: I had to challenge Zoubek to a game of pop-a-shot.
It was my Bill Simmons videogames-with-Tiger moment, and I'd be damned if I didn't give it the good ol' college try-no matter how annoying or obnoxious it made me.
So armed with the 86 tickets I won playing trivia, I approached Brian and asked him if he would be willing to play a game of pop-a-shot with me so I could write about it. He graciously agreed.
In my head, I was embarrassingly confident. I'm a great pop-a-shot player, don't get me wrong, but I didn't even take a practice round to get myself adjusted to the hoop. And it was the full-sized basketball, cage-style machine-not the more childish mini-hoop one. I was an overmatched amateur playing a man's game. And I thought I could beat Brian Zoubek.
When the buzzer went off on both of our machines, it was on. I nailed my first shot. This is it. I'm golden, I thought.
But then my next shot rimmed out. And the next. And the next. Ordinarily, this would have been the point where I would've started swearing like a trucker, but I felt compelled to make a small effort to maintain what was left of my professionalism. Before I knew it, the game ended.
After 60 seconds of popping and shotting, the score was Zoubek 46, Shiner 22. I got my clock cleaned. Granted, had I taken a one-point handicap for every inch Zoubek is taller than me, we almost would have tied. And practice might have helped. But the point is, I was naive enough to think I could compete with a guy with a pterodactyl-like wingspan at a game tailored for him to win.
What was I thinking?
The whole humiliating experience reminded me of my most recent conversation with Zoubek, which came after Duke's 76-68 loss to North Carolina in Cameron Indoor Stadium last March.
Zoubek had just played what teammate Jon Scheyer called the best game of his career. In only nine minutes of action, Zoubek went 3-of-4 from the field for six points, grabbed three rebounds and visibly frustrated All-American Tyler Hansbrough, whom he blocked once.
In the locker room, I asked Zoubek about Scheyer's comments and of guarding Hansbrough in college basketball's biggest rivalry.
"I felt great playing against him," he said of the more renowned Tobacco Road center. "I think I can hold myself against anybody in the country. Obviously, he's a pretty good player, and so just to be able to match intensity and hustle as well as skill with him is pretty good.
"The intangible stuff that I bring to the table [is important]; the intensity and just energy, I hope that my teammates can feed off it, and I can provide a boost that way, and hopefully a presence inside."
That night, Zoubek was just as confident as I had been-only he was justified in his thinking. He can compete with almost any center in the ACC. It's just that up to this point, injuries and roster realities have kept him from the chance to prove it. But this could be his breakout year. And the Blue Devils need it to be.
He and Lance Thomas are this team's question marks in that they have the power to elevate Duke from a very good team to a great one, but haven't yet established that they can. If they can combine for 20-20 per contest-or even 16-16-there's no reason why this team can't be a Final Four contender.
The Blue Devils' perimeter is one of the deepest in the nation, with Greg Paulus, Nolan Smith, Scheyer, Gerald Henderson, Dave McClure and Elliot Williams all vying for minutes. And Kyle Singler is going to be solid at the four. But all of their jobs become so much easier if Zoubek and Thomas can keep opposing big men occupied inside.
Zoubek knows that. He also knows he is good enough to compete.
But I bet there will be a lot of opponents this season who, like me, underestimate Duke's 7-foot-1 center.
And when the buzzer sounds, they just might find themselves blown out of the Fun Park.
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