Jimmy Patsos: Idiot Coach, Brilliant Philosopher

Jimmy Patsos first displayed his mental prowess and Zen master abilities in a loss to Cornell in which he climbed into the stands in order to avoid receiving his second technical.

His ingenious game-time decisions were only surpassed by his display of intellectual and introspective prose:

"I really hadn't done anything in the first place to warrant the technical, and there was no warning. But instead of arguing, I just moved to the other side of the bench and had [assistant] Matt Kovarick call the plays."

"I didn't want to get tossed out. I had my hands up in the surrender position."

"I didn't want to hurt the school or the program, but at that point I really didn't know what to do."

"I've lost weight, feel better, and am happy to turn the other cheek."

His divine wisdom on and off the basketball court never seizes to amaze. Patsos has even been dubbed "Leonardo of Hardwood, Shakespeare of Post-game."

Tuesday’s game versus Davidson was no exception, as Patsos decided to double-team the nation’s leading scorer, Stephen Curry, wherever he was standing, regardless of whether Curry possessed the ball.

The brilliant strategy led to Davidson taking full advantage of their 4-on-3 power play en route to a 78-48 thumping of Loyola Maryland. At least that is what occurred to the untrained mind.

Patsos enlightened the naive media members with these nuggets of knowledge and thought provocation:

"I know the fans are mad at me, but I had to roll the dice as far as a coach goes. I'm not some rookie coach. I won a national title as a top assistant coach to Gary Williams. For 13 years I spent on Tobacco Road. I coached a couple of No. 1 picks in the draft. And we scored 48 points. That's the problem that Loyola basketball had today."

"Our goal is to win. We weren't going to win with Curry scoring 35 and making nine assists. Those nine assists are at least 18 more points—that's 53 points. That's a pretty big number."

"We had to play against an NBA player tonight. Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I'm a history major. They're going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?"

We held him scoreless, or we lost by 30—that is the question.