March Lamb

Nothing but an overnight fancy: Maryland overpowers Houston 89-77 in NCAATourney

Hopefully, Aubrey Coleman, Tom Penders and the rest of the University of Houston's basketball contingent picked up some souvenirs in Spokane, Washington.

Because the memories of NCAA Tournament action itself will be very brief for the Cougars. No. 4 seed Maryland pushed aside the improbable 13th seed from the Bayou City 89-77 tonight in a first round game that was only really a contest for a half.

Houston ended one long streak of futility by getting here — making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 18 years. But another long run of misery continued — it's still been 26 years since UH has won a game in college basketball's showcase tournament.

Two steps forward, one smack into a brick wall.

It's fair to wonder how much Houston will get out of this brief taste of March. The program — and the school to a lesser extent — received more attention from the national press in the last six days than it has in years. But Penders, the coach that the Cougars administration was set to nudge out the door when the regular season ended with a 15-15 record, will be harder to get rid of now.

The 64-year-old Penders talked all week about how the most dangerous man in a fight is the crazy one who has nothing to lose, likening his Cougars to such a lunatic. It turns out that a co-champion from the powerhouse Atlantic Coast Conference with a do-it-all point guard, the size that upstarts like the Cougars lack and plenty of depth is awfully dangerous too.

Tournament-dream-killing dangerous.

Maryland (25-8) outlasted and overpowered Houston (19-16), getting a double-double from its 6-foot-10 center Jordan Williams (21 points, 15 rebounds) and an understated but effectively deadly stat-sheet-filling night from ACC Player of the Year Greivis Vasquez (16 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists). Houston actually had the better two-man show with Coleman (26 points on 9-for-21 shooting from the field, 7-for-13 unmarksmanship from the free-throw line) and Kelvin Lewis (24 points).

Unfortunately, college basketball isn't a 2-on-2 game. It's 5-on-5 and the Terrapins overwhelmed there. While Coleman and Lewis combined for almost 66 percent of Houston's points and only four other Cougars scored at all, Maryland received contributions from eight players. This particularly showed up on the boards as the taller Terrapins outrebounded Penders' four-guard scheme by an overwhelming 45-27 margin.

Any chance to negate the ACC power's brawn advantage was done in by Houston missing 12 of its 32 free throws. What is it with Texas teams and charity-stripe woes? Just the night before, the University of Texas blew an eight-point overtime lead because it couldn't hit foul shots.

Aubrey's Auxiliary

Coleman carried the Cougars early, scoring 14 points in the game's first 15 minutes. In many ways, this was Coleman's introduction to the college basketball nation and he wasn't going to disappoint. He dropped in a pull-up three from the wing, swung into the lane for a pretty jump stop floater, hit jumpers in transition.

Maybe, finally somebody would notice the nation's leading scorer. For even as he poured in points throughout the regular season, nobody outside of Houston (and few inside the city either for that matter) paid attention to the Cougars star, figuring Coleman was just a trigger-happy gunner on a middling, second-tier conference team. Until tonight, when Coleman held the sports nation's attention for several moments.

Still when Maryland built up a 37-29 first-half lead and appeared ready to start pulling away for the first time, Cougars guard Adam Brown is the one who provided the big jolt of hope.

Brown hit a double-clutch, hesitating heave from only a stride across half court at the first-half buzzer, pulling Houston within 39-37 at the break. Suddenly, Cinderella was back in Spokane.

Any magic evaporated during intermission though. The Terrapins came out like a hare, hitting their first five shots of the second half, essentially never looking back.

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Movie Review

Gut-busting action comedy Novocaine features a hero who can't feel pain

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Jack Quaid in Novocaine.

Stories featuring ordinary people faced with extreme situations have proven to be popular in film history. They range from Hitchcock movies like Rear Window to Brian De Palma’s Blow Out to the Coen Brothers’ Fargo. Recent films like Nobody and Love Hurts have put a twist on the sub-genre, featuring protagonists whose mild personas and everyman looks hide violent abilities.

The new film Novocaine is a further twist, as the ordinary man at its center has an ability that he’s never fully tapped before. Nate Caine (Jack Quaid) is a mild-mannered assistant bank manager whose life is boring by design, as he has a disorder called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain. Being unable to feel pain, traumatic events that would stop most people in their tracks don’t faze him at all, sometimes to his detriment.

Soon after making a rare connection with another bank employee, Sherry (Amber Midthunder), the bank is robbed and Sherry is kidnapped. Nate decides to pursue the kidnappers to try to rescue Sherry, setting in motion a series of events that a person without his condition would find unbearable. However, his inability to feel pain turns him into a kind of unstoppable machine, determined to do whatever it takes to achieve his goal.

That synopsis of the film, directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen and written by Lars Jacobsen, makes it sound like a serious action film, but it’s actually an action comedy that finds a unique angle for its hero. The filmmakers portray Nate’s condition, if not completely accurately, then with an air of plausible realism. The laughs come not at his expense, but in reaction to how he repeatedly uses his ability to his advantage.

The result is a violently graphic film that rivals ones like John Wick in what it showcases. Knowing he can’t get hurt, Nate has no issue putting himself in harm’s way, whether it’s burns, gunshot wounds, impalements, and more. The amount of damage done to him could make the film into a kind of live-action Looney Tunes, but the filmmakers manage to walk the line between hilariously ridiculous and eye-rollingly stupid.

The romance between Nate and Sherry provides a nice through-line for the story, with a few good twists and turns along the way. The lone big misstep of the film is Nate’s friendship with Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), one developed through online gaming that turns into real life by necessity. It takes a long time for them to get any scenes together, with their interactions ultimately feeling unnecessary.

Quaid seems to be hitting his stride as an actor, starring in The Boys on Prime Video and in the recent Companion. He does a great job of never overplaying this role, keeping Nate as a regular person despite what he’s able to do. Midthunder is hit-and-miss, as the story takes her character through a yo-yo arc. Betty Gabriel and Matt Walsh do serviceable work as detectives tracking Nate, delivering exactly what’s expected of them.

Novocaine is much better than it probably had a right to be, with some solid storytelling, some intense action, and a fantastic lead performance by Quaid. Humor and graphic violence don’t always go hand-in-hand, but this film finds a way to combine them in memorable ways.

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Novocaine opens in theaters on March 14.

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