Why Scott Wood should be your new favorite college hoops player

I’m a Scott Wood fan, I celebrate the dude’s entire catalog. The NC State junior forward plays hard, nails his 3’s and hits damn near every free throw he attempts. Oh, and he says brutally honest stuff like this in the wake of his team having its collective throat slit by North Carolina:

I’m still stunned that beat reporters actually ask players whose team has just been blown out questions like, “How frustrating was that?” Huh? Asking that is tantamount to asking a guy who’s just been shot, “Does it hurt much?”

I’ve witnessed this goofiness in person, either in postgame pressers or in more intimate settings. Back in college I had a buddy who was in journalism school and worked for the school paper, the Auburn Plainsman.

A few days after Auburn was soundly trounced in Gainesville by Florida, he called me up to tell me he was heading over to the athletic complex to interview offensive lineman Ed King. He invited me to tag along and I gladly went.

I won’t blame my buddy too much because he was still a neophyte in his profession at that point, but once we got there, a torrent of ridiculous questions sprung from his mouth. Not surprisingly, King wasn’t very engaging when asked things like, “Did you think you’d lose by that much?”

It got so ugly that I just piped up out of nowhere even though it wasn’t my place. I asked King about how surprising it was that Florida blitzed with so much frequency in that game. He shook his head and laughed like a guy who’d endured some terrible siege and was only just now coming to grips with it.

In the few minutes after that I learned more about a college offensive lineman’s responsibilities and Auburn’s game week preparations than I ever had before. But those weren’t the most important lessons I took away from that exchange. No, the most important lesson was that when you ask good questions you get good answers.

I’m not going to sit here and belittle beat writers too much because I know it’s not always the easiest job. Sitting on press row and wrestling with tight deadlines day after day isn’t something that all of us are cut out for. In that scenario, maybe dumb questions are all some of these dead behind the eyes bastards can dredge up.

Watching Scott Wood’s BLESSED reaction to a stupid question only served to remind me of all the blank stares and terse answers I’ve seen coaches and players give to goofy questions. For the record, beat writers, losing doesn’t ever feel good.