Not even a month ago, the list of people that packed right hands with more negative repercussions than Wake Forest guard Chris Paul was short.
1. Mike Tyson
2. Ike Turner
3. Three or four Indiana Pacers tied
Then, Paul hit North Carolina State guard Julius Hodge in the jimmy, setting off a Chernobyl-like chain of events in this year’s NCAA tournament and effectively low-blowing every wannabe bracket guru in the country.
Hodge and the Wolfpack stunned Connecticut 65-62 over the weekend and snuck into the Sweet 16.
Paul’s Demon Deacons were bounced back to Winston-Salem after a second-round loss to West Virginia.
So Paul, who will probably be a lottery pick if he enters the NBA draft, will have plenty of time to think about the impact his Andrew Golata impersonation had on a (sports) nation.
But just in case he doesn’t, I will.
For starters, N.C. State shouldn’t have made it to the tournament.
The Wolfpack finished 7-9 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, a game behind last year’s runner-up Georgia Tech and a Virginia Tech team that must have prepped for its first season in the ACC by watching every John Wooden instructional tape ever recorded.
Anyway, if Paul never hits Hodge with the G.I. Joe karate chop, then the school doesn’t suspend him for Wake’s first ACC tournament game, which was, of course, against N.C. State.
The Wolfpack, which hadn’t beaten the Deacons in either of its regular season games, probably lose again if Paul dresses out. Instead, he’s on the bench wearing a suit he apparently borrowed from Bishop Don Magic Juan, and Wake loses by 16.
(Note: Check with any VCU starter, but Paul is usually good for that many points from the free-throw line.)
If Paul plays and Wake wins, N.C. State probably switches places with Virginia Tech, going to the NIT instead of going dancing.
Despite a great season in the ACC, Tech probably would have helped keep everybody’s brackets clean by taking an “L” to UConn in the second round, if not to Charlotte in the first.
Wake, despite probably being hemmed up nicely by Duke in the ACC tournament, would have got the No. 1 seed that everybody said Sweet 16-bound Washington didn’t deserve.
Then the Huskies would have been the ones struggling through the bottom half of the Albuquerque bracket instead of the Demon Deacons, who would have pounded on Montana and Pacific like Washington did.
Meanwhile, N.C. State would have been running up and down the East Coast putting the hurt on teams like Temple, Memphis and Wichita State.
None of this happened, however, and Bracketville can blame Paul.
He single-handedly or closed-fistedly or wind-up, reach-aroundedly ruined half the tournament, leaving red eraser marks or ugly whiteout blotches on every bracket except maybe Digger Phelps’.
As a matter of fact, blame Paul for all the upsets this year-Kansas losing to Bucknell, Vermont beating the Syracuse, Wisconsin-Milwaukee ousting Alabama and Boston College.
It’s like he upset the cosmic balance of the NCAA tournament or something.
And the NIT, too, come to think of it.
Who knows where VCU would be if Paul doesn’t make a bajillion shots from the free-throw line last November?
Instead of back-to-back CAA championships and a NCAA tournament run, the Rams end up losing to Davidson in the first round of the NIT.
Why?
Because of Paul’s right hand.