As the the Duke student section filed out of Cameron Indoor Stadium following a 98-85 win over N.C. State, most had no idea that they were being accused on Twitter of classlessly chanting "How's your Grandma?" at Wolfpack point guard Tyler Lewis. Indeed, Margie Lewis, Tyler's grandmother, passed away Saturday at the age of 83. According to reports, he was very close to her and spoke with her on the phone every day while she was in the hospital. So Alex Kennedy, an NBA reporter for HoopsWorld, was ascribing a serious offense to the Crazies when he first sent word out about the rumored chant. His nearly 50,000 followers saw the following message:
Duke fans reportedly chanted, "How's your grandma?" at N.C. State's Tyler Lewis, whose grandmother recently passed away. That's messed up.— Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) February 8, 2013
Of course, you would have to have been at the game—which Kennedy was not—to clearly understand the chant as "Past your bedtime," which the Crazies did chant at Lewis after the Duke line monitors wrote on their whiteboard, "It's past Tyler Lewis' bedtime," and were shown on the scoreboard video screens.
And though that particular chant might have turned out to be the most controversial, it wasn't even the Crazies' most creative effort of the night. Here are some other turns of phrase from the Thursday night Cameron Indoor Stadium crowd:
- "Bilbo Baggins," also to Lewis, who makes even Quinn Cook look tall.
- "Nervous Purvis," to shooting guard Rodney Purvis, whose nickname according to USA Basketball is "Never Nervous." The freshman did indeed look nervous most of the night, with a 3-for-8 shooting performance and a 1-for-3 showing from the free throw line.
- "Over and over and over....," to C.J. Leslie, in reference to his literary debut, a poem entitled "She Finally Came," which he wrote in a poetry class. The poem was printed and distributed through the student section before the game.
- "Wood is soft," to Scott Wood, who was knocked to the floor several times during the game, a not-so-subtle reference to the 3-point marksman's surname and, uh, the subject of Leslie's poetic masterpiece.
Here's a video via Shane Ryan of the Crazies chanting "Past your bedtime," which was somehow misconstrued to be "How's your grandma?":
The creativity was on full display at Cameron Indoor for a crowd that had begun lining up Monday night for a crucial conference game against one of two teams to have beaten the Blue Devils so far this season. But as caustic as the Crazies can sometimes be, especially after N.C. State faithful rushed the PNC Arena court after beating Duke, taunting an opposing player about deceased family member would be one step too far for the Duke student section.
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