You’re welcome, Beyonce fangirls and boys (especially Kristen… And apparently everyone I follow on twitter). Personally, no Super Bowl halftime show will ever come close to U2 in 2002, but that’s a bar that’s probably set too high due to the emotions of that moment in time (post-9/11). And while she was almost certainly responsible for the blackout (did you SEE all the electronics on stage? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist), Bey did pretty much kill it. The only thing missing was Jay-Z coming out at the end, walking to the end of the stage, and holding up Blue Ivy like Simba in the Lion King. Coronation complete.

And on that note, the news:

-Ok, stop me if you’ve heard this before– Nerlens Noel is the SEC freshman of the week. Yup, as Kristen reported in an earlier post, Noel has taken the honor for the third straight week. It’s not just scary to imagine where this team would be without Nerlens, it’s downright terrifying.

-An interesting tidbit to come out of the weekend down in Texas (in my opinion at least), is that Coach Cal’s coaching career almost began at TAMU.  According to Cal, after graduating from Clarion, he drove down to College Station to interview with then longtime head coach Shelby Metcalf. The two got along well, but they “just didn’t get it done.” And thank god for that. I’ve seen Back to the Future, I know how that story ends. Early decisions like that, when made differently, significantly alter the course of one’s life. If Cal takes that job, who knows where he ends up. So, thank your lucky stars, Cats fans.

-In lighter, less sci-fi heavy news, Frank Martin called Nerlens “the human eraser” in the SEC teleconference this morning. Dammit, Frank. I really don’t want to like you, but between your mafioso suits, and lines like this one– “It starts up top with their ball pressure, it’s hard to break them down. So when you do break them down, it’s not a big crack. Then you got a human eraser back there.”– it’s getting pretty hard.

-During that same teleconference, Cal was brutally honest about this team’s lack of a consistent identity, saying: “We have been in flux all year. We have not figured out who we are.” Obviously, this is both a true, and worrisome, statement. The optimistic side of me is totally cool with this, especially because they really do seem to be figuring it out. The realistic side of me says that it’s February, hurry up. The optimistic side is the one that allows me to sleep at night.

And believe it or not, that’s all there is for the news. I think the UK basketball news cycle must be hungover too. Go Cats.

@McCarthyKSR