First off, one of the best things awaiting us in the NCAA Tournament that no one is mentioning? The cavalcade of announcers attempting, poorly, to pronounce Kristof! Ongenaet's name. Just this morning I heard someone on the radio say "On-ja-neat." It's going to be fun.
So many of the players in the Tourney have been dreaming of this weekend their entire lives. They grew up watching the Big Dance on TV, re-enacting it's greatest moments in their driveway. All except Kristof!, who pretty much would have had no idea what you were talking about up until four years ago.
“Maybe if you had a special channel, you had a couple NBA games a week that you could watch,” Ongenaet said. “It was real late because of the hour difference. So no. Before I came to America, maybe I saw 10 NBA games and except for that there’s nothing I really knew about it.”
Even now, KO's not entirely sure what the hell is going on.
‘‘I don’t really know 100 percent everything,’’ Ongenaet said. ‘‘The third seed, the fourth seed, the fifth seed. I’m not really sure what all that means.’’
That's okay, Kristof! Neither does Dick Vitale and he's been at it for years.
KO goes on to say the chance to play in the NCAA Tournament was a big part of the reason he came to SU in the first place. Which is weird considering once they finally made it, he had absolutely no idea what to do with himself:
On Sunday, he watched the NCAA’s Selection Show along with the rest of his teammates, but lacked their familiarity with what was happening. The SU players erupted at the sight of Syracuse’s name as the No. 3 seed, so Ongenaet just followed in kind.
How cute is this guy? (nh)