ESPN Men's Basketball

Thursday, I made note of Iowa guard Devan Bawinkel's "12 trillion," the stat by which Bawinkel played 12 whole minutes of a basketball game without registering a single other statistic, thus giving him the famed trillion pioneered by Ohio State walk-on genius Mark Titus. (You already know about Titus by now, don't you?)

The 12 trillion is a remarkable and unfortunate thing; Titus has clear rules against extending any trillion past three or four minutes because there comes a point when the stat stops being polite and starts getting real, and that's when you realize you're actually just hurting your team. The trillion's not so fun then.

Anyway, both I and Adam Jacobi from Black Heart Gold Pants thought Bawinkel's trillion had to be the longest in history. It's almost impossible to play that many minutes of basketball without committing a foul or taking a shot or dropping a dime, right? Wrong. One intrepid Hawkeye Lounge reader called up a list of recorded trillions, the longest of them being -- get this -- 31 trillion. 31 trillion!

It's true. On Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2001, Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils guard Elvis Robinson played an entire 31 minutes -- second most on his team -- without recording a single stat. 31 trillion. You can see the box score right here. It's ... it's beautiful. It really is.

So feel better, Devan Bawinkel. Your 12 trillion is still quite a feat. But it's a long way to the top if you want to be king of the trillion mountain. Which you don't.

Ohio State super-scrub Mark Titus culminated a brilliant home career with one final trillion Tuesday night. Titus has made the trillion a more popular statistic than free throw rate, but for those unfamiliar, a trillion is registered when a scrub gets in for the final minute of the game but fails to make any other statistical impact during that game. The player ends up with a 1 in the minutes column and 13 zeros across the board. How Titus came up with this is beyond me, but it's pretty awesome -- the true test of how scrubariffic your team's last walk-on really is.

Still, there are rules here. You don't want to be racking up trillions in any way, shape or form. Too many minutes in the game without a single statistical record and you become less an oddity and more of a detriment. Which is why Iowa's Devan Bawinkel might have a little shame spiral action this morning. As noticed by Black Heart Gold Pants, Bawinkel posted a trillion -- in 12 minutes. 12 trillion!

This would seem impressive, but again, folks, there are rules. Let's go to Titus, the Tril-father himself, for a dissertation therein:

The reason a five trillion is actually worse than a four trillion is because there has to be a point in which the player is no longer playing the role of benchwarmer soaking up the scrub time, but is instead playing the role of "guy who could make his way into the rotation if he didn’t choose to do absolutely nothing with his opportunity". Someone who is playing five minutes in a game and isn’t doing anything of importance is basically just wasting everyone’s time. The fact that they’ve managed to get more than four minutes means that they shouldn’t be treated as a scrub for that particular game, because scrub time officially starts with four minutes left and a 20 point lead. As such, because they haven’t been dubbed a "scrub" ("dub a scrub" is a fun phrase) they have an obligation to entertain the crowd with their play instead of trying to be inefficient by getting a trillion. When scrubs get trillions, it’s riveting stuff. When guys playing five or more minutes get trillions, it’s borderline depressing.

This is not a ringing endorsement. Still, I think Bawinkel's in the clear. He wasn't trying (you weren't, right Devan?) to register a 12 trillion in the scoreline, so it's not as though he was intentionally hurting his team, and if Bawinkel was being completely ineffective -- which, uh, yeah -- it's his coach's job to take him out of the game. Instead, Bawinkel played hard. He just happened to do something unintentionally awesome in his otherwise forgetful 12 minutes. There's nothing wrong with that. Quite the opposite -- we should honor this accomplishment.

So congrats, Devan Bawinkel! You are quite probably the first 12 trillionaire in the history of college basketball statistics. A nation obsessed with ironic statistical minutiae salutes you.

Saddle Up is our nightly preview of the hoops your TV wants you to watch. Here's Thursday's rundown.

Tulsa at No. 5 Duke, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2: Hey, Dad, I can't see real good. Is that -- waves glasses up and down face -- is that a nonconference game I see over there? Why, yes, Matt Foley, it is: Those of you who thought we were done with any and all nonconference fun until the NCAA tournament were wrong. Instead, Tulsa will head to Cameron Indoor Stadium tonight to play Duke. Why does this game exist? Two reasons: 1) Because Coach K wanted a late-season nonconference game to help prepare his team for the NCAA tournament, and 2) because Tulsa coach Doug Wojcik wants his team to experience playing an elite team in a hostile road environment.

Both missions will be accomplished. The slightly disappointing Golden Hurricane will get their experience and a long-shot chance to do what no team has done this year (beat Duke at home) or in 77 tries (beat Duke at home in a nonconference game). Duke will put Tulsa through the meat grinder in the name of tournament preparation. Both parties will go home happy. The only way to change this status quo -- and maybe the only way for Tulsa to get in the tournament, with a big emphasis on the maybe (and barring the C-USA tournament, of course) -- is for it to pull off an shocker-of-the-season-level upset. But don't hold your breath.

South Carolina at No. 2 Kentucky, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN2: The only reason Kentucky isn't, as of Feb. 25, sitting at 27-0 and dealing with writers like me trying to put into perspective how impressive that run is, and how likely the Cats are to finish a perfect season, and so on and so forth, is South Carolina. More specifically, Devan Downey. The diminutive guard and his cohorts dealt Kentucky its only loss of the season on Jan. 26. Of course, that game was in Columbia, where the Gamecocks are game. Away from home, South Carolina is an ugly 1-8, and tonight's match up requires Downey and company to play in front of 24,000 screaming Kentucky fans, a far cry from the last time these two faced off. That alone would lend to a blowout tonight; add in Kentucky's reborn focus in recent weeks and its likely desire to punish South Carolina for dealing John Wall and company that lone loss and, well, yeah. Things could get ugly.

Everywhere else: Mike Montgomery will hope Cal fans show up to tonight's game with Arizona, as the Bears can inch closer to their first conference title in 50 years. ... Santa Clara will go to Gonzaga for tonight's late West Coast showdown. ... Wisconsin travels to all-but-dead Indiana; for seeding purposes, the Badgers can't afford another letdown. ... Iowa-Northwestern is your early ESPN game, and don't try to hide your excitement, either. ... Georgia will look to climb back to .500 at Vanderbilt; good luck. ... and, this being Thursday night, there are a host of Pac-10 games that (other than Cal-Zona, I guess) don't mean a whole lot more than which team gets which seed in the Pac-10 tournament, when the real anarchic fun ought to begin.

Six o'clock thoughts:

• San Diego State would love to make the Mountain West Conference a four-bid league, but the Aztecs could actually cut it to two. Their victory over UNLV might come closer to pushing the Rebels out of the tournament than getting Steve Fisher's team in it. This was a two-loss week for UNLV.

• Texas' 40-point detonation of Nebraska only reinforces the talent at Rick Barnes' disposal -- and only reinforces the puzzlement over why that talent can become so dysfunctional at times lately.

• How bad is the Pacific-10? Right now it's a one-bid league, and the team that looks like the best of the sorry lot -- California -- might not play enough defense to even win a game in the NCAAs. The Golden Bears won, but were lit up at home by Washington State's Klay Thompson for 28 points and the Cougars shot 51 percent from the field, but couldn't hold a second-half lead (again).

• And then there are the offensively challenged, which brings us to Iowa. Gross. The Hawkeyes had no prayer against Purdue's defense.

• Speaking of defense-optional: North Carolina-Asheville had 64 at halftime on VMI.

Saddle Up is our daily look at the hoops your TV wants you to watch tonight. Here's Wednesday night's rundown. Special programming note: I'll be flying to Indianapolis tomorrow to participate in the NCAA's mock selection committee, so my blogging may be a little light these next couple of days. I'm sure you'll find a way to persevere.

No. 7 Duke at North Carolina, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN: Given the average college basketball fan's general fatigue with Duke-North Carolina -- everyone likes to complain about the attention these two teams always receive, and not without reason -- you might be struggling to find a reason to care about tonight's game. After all, if North Carolina (13-10, 2-6 in the ACC) is this bad, what's the point? Won't Duke just roll?

Maybe. Maybe not. Duke is certainly a more complete and more polished team than the Tar Heels. Veterans Jon Scheyer and Kyle Singler and the rest of Duke's formidable lineup constitute a major advantage over UNC's talented but inexperienced bunch. But it's not that cut and dry. Duke has major flaws, and one of them is that it's just not very good on the road. Let's not forget the Devils' trouncing at Georgetown two weeks ago. Nor should we ignore Duke's loss at NC State two weeks before that. Duke played very few nonconference road games, and it's been punished for it since, going 2-4 on the road in six tries overall. For a team with national title aspirations, Coach K's bunch has a way of looking decidedly average away from Cameron Indoor.

Meanwhile, North Carolina is in a horrific tailspin. What better way to turn the season around after losing six of your last seven than by getting a win at home over your hated rival? What better way to build confidence in your young players than by them proving to themselves they can play with an elite group like Duke? Or maybe the inverse happens: Duke dominates UNC at home in front of a disgusted crowd, and Roy Williams has to figure out how to get his team to recover from its latest disaster -- and how to talk to the media without sounding depressed and apoplectic after the game. The outcome will be high drama, in its own marginal way.

This might not be vintage UNC-Duke. You won't confuse tonight's lineups with anything you'll see on ESPN Classic. But sleep on it at your own peril. For reasons different than the past, this rivalry might surprise you yet.

Connecticut at No. 3 Syracuse, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: Speaking of intrigue, or a lack thereof ... ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present UConn-Cuse 2010! These two teams have taken opposite trajectories to end up where they are today. Syracuse was seen as a marginal Top 25 team at the beginning of the season; the Orange has morphed into one of the few viable challengers to Kansas' putative crown. UConn was a top 15 team to begin the year, and has morphed into a Jim Calhoun-less shell of its former self -- dominant shot-blockers on the defensive end (where the Huskies are No. 1 in the country for the ninth year in a row) and barely average at almost everything else. Jim Calhoun is being mentioned for coach of the year awards. Jim Calhoun is still on a leave of absence with no return date imminent.

It's hard to spin those conditions into something positive, even for me, and I'm positive (to a fault, admittedly) about any and all college basketball on my television. It's college hoops! It's awesome in and of itself! We get to watch basketball! Hooray for basketball! But it's hard not to feel the same sinking feeling many will have about Duke-UNC, and that many had about Kansas-Texas -- this game should be so much better. It's up to UConn to prove us wrong. (In the Carrier Dome. Against a dominant 2-3 zone. With a team that can't shoot. Um, good luck, I guess?)

No. 19 New Mexico at No. 25 UNLV, 11 p.m. ET: It would be criminal to focus on the above games and not give what could be tonight's best, most important matchup some love. New Mexico at UNLV is tonight's only game featuring two top 25 teams, and that's not the only reason to watch. Whoever wins tonight takes over first place in the Mountain West, where three teams (these two, plus BYU) are vying for NCAA tournament bids. Plus it features a matchup between the conference's two best wing players, New Mexico's Darington Hobson and UNLV's Tre'Von Willis. New Mexico rarely turns the ball over; UNLV thrives on forcing steals. New Mexico loves to get to the free throw line; UNLV never allows its opponents that luxury. Stay up past your bedtime, East Coasters. You don't want to miss the game of the night.

Everywhere else: Ohio State will visit Bloomington, where the Hoosiers have been a tough out all year. But tough enough to keep Evan Turner Line Watch from showing up in the morning? Doubtful. ... Northern Iowa will go on the road to play a pesky Drake squad, which wants this win forever, man (sorry). ... Georgia Tech has lost its last two games on the road and will try to avoid a third at Miami. ... Florida goes to Columbia, where a banged-up Devan Downey should be in the lineup. ... Northwestern's game at Iowa is a must-win for the Wildcats' tournament chances. ... and a pair of important A-10 battles -- Charlotte at Dayton; Richmond at Rhode Island ... will go down.

Saddle Up is our preview of the hoops your TV wants you to watch tonight. Yes, your inanimate TV has totally real, humanoid feelings about your viewing habits. Here's Wednesday night's rundown:

No. 10 BYU at New Mexico, 10 p.m. ET: BYU has had a hard time earning respect. This is probably fair. Last year's Cougars put together an impressive resumé and had the tempo-free chops to go along with it, and as soon as they got to the tournament (and as soon as yours truly picked them to finish in the Sweet 16), the Cougars lost by 13 to a so-so Texas A&M team, bowing out of the NCAAs after 40 minutes. So it's probably fair if this year's BYU Cougars -- a 20-1 team currently ranked fourth in Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency ratings -- are met with a degree of skepticism from the national media. For example, Monday Digger Phelps told his ESPN studio mates that BYU was too high in the polls at No. 10, which was met with understandable agreement. BYU hasn't played anybody. But in regards to their poll placement, the numbers seem to disagree; BYU might actually deserve to be higher.

The lesson here? They have to prove it. Tonight -- an away game versus a New Mexico team that launched itself into the top 25 early in the season, beating Texas Tech and Cal on the way there -- is a chance to do just that. It's also a chance to see Jimmer Fredette, BYU's point guard and leading scorer, match up with New Mexico guard Dairese Gary. It's as good a look as the Cougars going to get for a while. They ought to make the most of it.

Notre Dame at No. 3 Villanova, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: Does Villanova want a No. 1 ranking? If so, it'll have to handle its business tonight against a pesky but not-quite-there Notre Dame team. The Irish gave Syracuse a few fits with its zone last week, but ultimately fell short because their own defense was so bad. This is a trend under Mike Brey, and it's just the way things will go for this ND team. They might win a few games, but they'll need a surge if they want to make Luke Harangody's final year anything but another stopover to the next level, wherever Harangody might end up. (Maybe the NBA, maybe not.) A quick aside here: That's sort of sad. Watching Luke Harangody is a joy. He's one of the weirdest, most effective players we've seen in decades, and he's arguably best Notre Dame player of all-time. That he has toiled away his last two years of eligibility on decidedly mediocre teams feels like a waste.

Florida State at No. 7 Duke: Duke has had its occasional issues this season, but from a tempo-free standpoint, they still look awfully good. That's good news, because Florida State doesn't fear Cameron Indoor Stadium; the Seminoles are one of only four visiting teams to have won at Cameron in the past four years. Florida State won seven in a row before back-to-back losses at Maryland and against N.C. State at home, and that last loss is not the stuff quality NCAA tournament teams are made of, even if N.C. State has been a slight surprise this season. But maybe, just maybe, if Florida state can manage to somehow keep its turnover bug at bay, its defense will be stingy enough to keep things close in Cameron. The court may look flat, but an uphill battle awaits.

Everywhere else: It's not on the main network, but if you have ESPNU you can watch the newly minted top 25 Vanderbilt Commodores go to Knoxville to take on in-state rivals Tennessee ... Temple faces another roadblock in its path to a potential A-10 title in 14-5 Charlotte ... Ohio State goes to Iowa to see what happens when Evan Turner looks around, sees lots of 5-foot-8 guys guarding him, stops being polite, and starts getting real ... Iowa State will visit Oklahoma in a match up of two Big 12 teams with singular talents who have managed to completely disappoint their fans ... Illinois State goes to Wichita State ... Georgia will see if it can keep its reputation for playing ostensibly superior teams tough on the road as it heads south to Gainsville ... Connecticut goes to Providence; the Huskies are still without Jim Calhoun.

Back in front of the scoreboard after a long day at my daughter's swim meet. A few things jump out at me from the afternoon portion of today's hoops schedule:

• Pitt's overtime win against Louisville is, to me, another sign of the continuing maturity of a really young Panthers team. Granted Pitt was at home, where it loses about as often as the solstice, but to rally back against a very talented Louisville team and then have the composure to take over in OT is no gimme. That the Panthers were able to do both -- and negate 25 points from Samardo Samuels -- ought to convert the handful of nonbelievers that Pitt is for real.

• Not sure why North Carolina's struggles are so stunning. Pitt loses four starters and everyone is stunned the Panthers are playing well; the Heels lose four starters and no one can understand why they aren't top five. The only thing that surprises me is that UNC probably is playing with less composure now than it was in December, but young teams do strange things and the powder blue uniforms don't negate the youth on this team. This is going to be a tough season for the Heels, with everyone in the ACC more than happy to take back some of the wins they sacrificed during the Tyler Hansbrough years.

• The win over Missouri may be a good sign for Oklahoma. The Sooners' survived the Tigers' freneticism and themselves, winning despite 20 turnovers. Oklahoma has been glossed over in the first of the season, and understandably so, but if the Sooners can get their act together and Willie Warren can consistently play up to his abilities, OU could be a dangerous team as the Big 12 season gets cooking.

• The more things change in the Atlantic 10, the more they appear to stay the same. Sean Miller is gone. Xavier isn't. The Musketeers beat early league favorite Dayton for the 25th consecutive time, a mark of futility that extends to the Ronald Reagan era -- 1981. The "in transition" X men stand atop the A10 standings at 4-0, with equally surprising Temple right behind them.

• And I have to send a note of condolence to Talor Battle. The Penn State guard is trying like heck to win by himself, but can't. Battle had 31 against hapless Iowa, but his teammates offered him no help, chipping in only 33 more. The Nittany Lions are 0-5 in the Big Ten and threatening to match their 0-10 start in 2003.

• And by the way ... remember Michigan State? Overlooked after a rough December, the Spartans have quietly won five in a row after dispatching Illinois.

The Morning After is our semi-daily recap post. Try not to make it awkward.

Ohio State 70, No. 6 Purdue 66: Evan Turner does bad things. You know this already. He did such things before the ugly back injury (which he suffered doing something awesome; players like Turner don't get injured in normal or unexciting ways, apparently), and he's done such things since returning from that injury. He's, um, really good. But the Buckeyes' accomplishment Tuesday night -- winning a road game over an efficient, brutal defensive team like Purdue -- is truly remarkable: Road wins like this simply don't happen all that often in basketball.

How did Ohio State do it? It was almost flawless where it counts most: The Buckeyes shot well, they rebounded their misses, and they didn't allow Purdue to get to the line, surrendering free throws on a mere 12 percent of the Boilermakers' possessions. Purdue will be disappointed with that number; the Boilermakers must find a way to balance their perimeter strengths with more touches for JaJuan Johnson, who shot only five times Tuesday night. Make no mistake, though: This win belongs to the Buckeyes, who got a legendary performance from their star and did more than enough around the margins to complement him. If the Buckeyes go on to stir things up at the top of college hoops this season, they will have learned their formula on Jan. 12.

No. 2 Kentucky 89, Florida 77: It's almost unfair. After all, John Calipari already has the best point guard and arguably best player (I'm adding in the "possibly" because did you see Turner last night?) in the nation in John Wall. It's easy to forget that Eric Bledsoe was almost as highly touted as Wall as a high schooler; Bledsoe was considered the third-best point guard in that class and among the top 20 or 30 players entering the 2009 class. But for all the John Wall love, Bledsoe is showing Kentucky fans they have no reason to worry about 2010 and beyond -- while not as versatile and athletic, Bledsoe is nearly as quick as Wall and has a much better shooting touch, which he displayed last night in his 25-point, 10-of-13 performance at Florida.

In the meantime, the tandem of Patrick Patterson and DeMarcus Cousins (and even Daniel Orton) is proving impossible for teams to stop. The Wildcats scored 1.25 points per possession last night -- an insane rate for any team -- without shooting particularly well from beyond the arc. Kentucky was just that good (65.2 percent for the game) on their twos. If the Wildcats can score at this rate even when they don't shoot well from the perimeter (and when Wall bricks 3 after 3, which he's prone to do), then we were all wrong: The Cats aren't vulnerable. They're just scary.

Colorado 78-No. 24 Baylor 71; No. 12 Kansas State 88, Texas A&M 65: Who else is trying -- and failing -- to figure out the middle portions of the Big 12? Eamonn confused: Baylor beats Oklahoma by 31 and goes to Colorado and loses to a frisky-but-let's-be-real-here-still-pretty-bad Buffs team. Meanwhile, Texas A&M looks like a tough matchup for a K-State team that lost its first Big 12 game to Missouri. Instead, the Aggies build themselves a tower of bricks (how tall? 38.2 percent FG% tall, is how tall) while K-State scores almost 1.2 points per possession. Road difficulties? Weird night? Who knows? The Pac-10 is this year's most wide-open conference -- which is a nice way of saying there are no good teams -- but the Big 12 might be the most fun to figure out in the next two months.

NC State 88, No. 25 Florida State 81: Florida State will have some 'splaining to do. How do you lose to the hapless Wolfpack at home? Well, here's how: Freshman Scott Wood made 7-of-11 3-pointers and scored a career high (duh) 31 points on the way to a Wolfpack win. Add that to NC State's generally hot shooting and efficiency on offense -- it went to the line on 66 percent of its possessions and scored 1.2 points per trip -- and you have a recipe for a freaky loss at home to an inferior team. Not that this is the upset of the century, but still.

Everywhere else: Maryland-Wake Forest played a classic that few around the country saw, trading baskets in overtime on the way to a two-point Wake win; Al-Farouq Aminu had 24 and 13 and a key defensive play in the victory. ... Northern Iowa tied a school record with its 14th straight win, but a two-point win over Bradley at home was probably not the win the UNI folks had in mind. ... TCU edged Wyoming out West. ... Illinois needed some last-second drama to top Penn State at home, but escaped with 54-53 the win all the same. ... Iowa got its sixth win, a five-point home win over Tennessee State.

Soon, there will be a better name for this than "Afternoon Linkage." Or, I should say, if the new name isn't exactly better, it will at least sound like there was some iota of thought involved before the fingers started hitting the keys. That much I can promise. In the meantime, off we go. (As always, if you have links or sites you want to submit for consideration, hit me up on Twitter.)

• Kansas holds the fort. For now. The Coaches' Poll should probably be ignored as much as possible. It sounds counterintuitive, but coaches are not national basketball prognosticators; their knowledge is intensely focused on their own team and on that team's next few opponents. As it should be. But hey, the polls are fun to glance at on Monday morning, and today's no different, as Kansas managed to hold on to its No. 1 overall ranking yet again. This is despite the emergence of Texas, which is also unbeaten and had a victory over North Carolina on Saturday that was far more impressive than KU's limpy win over a struggling Michigan team.
• What I'm trying to say is that Michigan can't score to save its life. Speaking of Michigan, Dylan at UM Hoops is still trying to figure out what's wrong with the Wolverines, who were ranked (OK, so perhaps they were a bit overrated) in the top 25 to begin the season. To be more precise, Dylan has figured it out: Michigan can't shoot. Like, at all. And the Wolverines aren't deep or talented enough to overcome it.
• Meanwhile, back in Lexington ... Kentucky fans have a lot going on. There's Monday night's game against Drexel, which is a big deal because if (when) Kentucky wins, it will become the first program in college basketball history to achieve 2,000 wins. That's an arbitrary number, sure, but it does convey some level of superiority, and you can bet Wildcat fans will be sure to bask in it. Then, after that little piece of business is handled, UK boosters can get back to being angry (perhaps rightfully) at Bob Knight and various other media members over last week's comments about John Calipari's supposed lack of integrity.
• Things keep getting worse for Iowa. I promise I'm not trying to spend my first day on the new blog bashing Iowa -- I'm from Iowa, after all; my friends will disown me if I keep this up -- but an already talent-bereft team just suspended guard Anthony Tucker for public intoxication in Iowa City. Seriously, someone throw Todd Lickliter a bone. This is just getting silly.
• Up a Creek without a paddle (but with a pretty effective outside jumper). Hey, Maurice Creek pun! Fun for the whole family. (Sorry. Won't happen again.) The point of that bad pun? To clue you in on Indiana frosh Maurice Creek, who is quietly averaging 18 points a game in his first season as a Hoosier and who seems to be getting better with every game.
• Does Willie Warren miss Blake Griffin? That's not fair. We all miss Blake Griffin. Remember when he hit his head on the backboard? That was awesome. But Warren might be missing Griffin more than most, as Sports Illustrated's Seth Davis writes today: "A closer look, however, reveals a more troubling picture. The latest snapshot came on Saturday, when Warren took six shots, scored four points and committed five turnovers as Oklahoma, which has fallen from a No. 17 preseason ranking out of the AP poll, barely squeaked by Northern Colorado at home, 80-79. After the game, Sooners coach Jeff Capel referred to Warren's desultory performance by saying, 'I'm tired of trying to figure him out.'" Eesh.
• Congrats, Gus Johnson. You were the best college basketball announcer of the decade, according to Searching For Billy Edelin. I have absolutely no problem with this.
• Long live the King. King Shark. Or something. It wouldn't be an inaugural batch of links if I didn't include Ohio State's Mark Titus in the mix, whose personal blog still manages to be sublimely funny even now, after the novelty has long since worn off. Go forth and read it. It's worth it for the occasionally horrifying glance into Titus' brain alone.