Keepin' it Presidential Today.
Another day with Fetch bailing on us to live-blog the entirety of the Olympics (you should go visit him, he gets lonely over there sometimes), so again I’ve been left in charge, since SC hasn’t been heard from in days. Today’s President’s Day, which means some of you probably have the day off from work… yet for some strange reason, I don’t get the day off from school. Go figure.
Anyways, in honor of President’s Day, we bring to you the best college basketball players with presidential names:
G – Tweety Carter, Baylor. Much like our 39th president — James “Jimmy” Carter — Tweety Carter doesn’t go by his legal first name (Demond). Beyond that, though, Tweety Carter is averaging 16.1 points per game for the Bears (10th in the Big 12), and leads the conference in assists, with 6.05 per game.
G – Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin. Okay, maybe I’m getting lazy with this name, but Taylor shares a last name with Zachary Taylor, our 12th president. Jordan Taylor is second in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio (and first in the Big Ten) at 3.4 to 1. He also led the team with a 2.2 ratio as a freshman last season. The more you know!
G/F – Kevin Palmer, Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Who said all the players on this team have to have nonfictional presidential names? Palmer shares a surname with two of the most prominent fictional presidents of our time: Wayne and David Palmer, of 24 fame. For the Islanders, Palmer is pouring in 19.75 points per with a TS% of 59.2. And yes, this will probably be one of the few times you see Corpus Christi get some pub from us.
F – D.J. Kennedy, St. John’s. See, his last name is Kennedy, and he plays for a school with John in its name, so there’s that. Then of course there’s the whole “he goes by initials, as did JFK,” thing. So it kinda works three-fold. High five! But seriously, D.J. Kennedy is doing work for the Red Storm this season. As a junior, he is averaging nearly 15 points and close to 7 boards per game. That’s sort of presidential.
F – Quincy Pondexter, Washington Huskies. Okay, so his name isn’t quite what you would expect for this team. But he plays for the University of Washington, and when I hear the name Quincy, two people come to mind: super-producer Quincy Jones — he of Thriller fame — and John Quincy Adams, our sixth POTUS. Pondexter is averaging over 20 points per game this season for the Huskies while pulling down eight boards per with a TS% of 62.