10 Scariest Faces in College Basketball History

In lieu of Twilight's recent release and on behalf of my female fans, I write this article a lover of Halloween and costume cocktail parties, believer in the supernatural.

I write this with a love for the characters who transcend themselves by taking on the persona of a sport figure.

So, game gods, thank you for that.

I cannot get over the paradoxical nature of certain faces. Evolution has a way of dealing us comedic cards in a haphazard light, his limelight shed on the scariest of some of us. Go figure.

Paint a picture of 10 of our most (or not most, but you get the point) beloved college basketball figures and you will be paralyzed in the absurdity of their embodiments.

When it comes to lunatic carnies, vampires or werewolves, we all can relate, but in order to understand the fear factor in this article, you have to be engaged and interactive with the comedic temperament of a humorist.

Let the games begin.

Louis Amundson, 2003-2006, UNLV Runnin' Rebels

The sweet evolution of comedy is priceless.

Not only is former UNLV forward Louis Amundson a love child of the astute V in V for Vendetta and the stubbly Crazy Jack from The Shining, but note: a love child taken as a baby by one of Twilight's Roman vampire's, the Volturi, then bitten and fed bottles of human blood.

As if the waterfall of golden locks don't give it away?

The demonically slanted eyes with the fierce mouth and the thin high-pinned eyebrows?

And the pastel-white afterglow? Is it sweat or is it his Edward-like sparkle?

No wonder the incredible-looking forward is a high flier with an uncanny ability to hop out of the gym. He's a supernatural beast with the desire to tear out opposing forwards juggler veins.  

Bobby Knight and Jerry Tarkanian, Longtime Coaches

I'd be scared to wave, say hello or offer the man a drink.

Bobby Knight is as unpredictable as a flesh-starved pit bull.

View Knight's stranglehold here.

His obvious obsession is treating others like dogs, and with the superiority complex of a ninth-grade bully, Knight is a perfect candidate to lead the zombie apocalypse.

Watching saggy-chinned Jerry Tarkanian coach was painful. A movement to his left or right and his gobble swayed like a hammock.

I imagine his skin is set in place with scotch tape, his swollen eyes with black bags of water balloons the proof he's a secret agent of the unliving gathering information on the living.

Once the apocalypse occurs, Knight will stranglehold Tarkanian and force the zombie to do his dirty work, starting with a gaggle of unneeded bench scrubs.  

Mark Eaton, 1980-1982, UCLA Bruins

As pathetic as it sounds, Mark Eaton was so very pathetic throughout most of his career that it is literally impossible to find a picture of him in a Bruins uniform.

But funny enough, he's always looked the same—like a re-cast for the 2021 release of Wolverine 13.

If anyone paid attention to Eaton's career (I highly doubt that) they'll wonder where 7'4" and 275 pounds disappeared to.

Eaton is like a werewolf who doesn't know he's a werewolf and because of that reverts to gentle-giant status. He's the Teenwolf too dumb to conclude why he grows pubic hair on his knuckles.  

Greg Oden, 2006-2007, Ohio State Buckeyes

There is an issue when one sleeps with Frankenstein's wife behind his back.

I am certain 15-year-old 50 Cent—whom I'll get back to later—was admiring of Frenkensteena's gap between her teeth, scraggly beard and slow methodical walk.

The curse from an adolescent 50 Cent hooking up with Frankenstein's wife is unforgivable. Out births a tall baby with glass knees and a temper as soft as Celine Dion's.

Greg Oden's first request at Ohio?

"Get me a recording of Celine's 'My Heart Will Go On.' And please help my mother! Her screw's a bit loose."

Calvin Booth, 1995-1999, Penn State Nittany Lions

One out of every 1,210 crazy carnies at your everyday clown-cowboy-teeny-bob-make-out-and-party carnival-fairs is a man of solace.

His name is Tim, he's from Utah and he is high on life.

Uh-huh—last time I checked, a deep breath of oxygen, as nice as that is, doesn't include partial levitation.

Most important to the fair experience are the countless creepers hiding behind overalls, oily ball caps, poo-stained boots, empty bottles, hay and heavy machinery.

Calvin Booth didn't make it in the pros.

I'm positive he felt displaced from his calling as a crazed lunatic.

He daydreamt of smiling from dark corners in flapping striped tents and did so with a side-cocking giggle.

He now manages a Tilt-O-Wheel somewhere in North Dakota.

Jeff Hornacek, 1982-1986, Iowa State Cyclones

Sadly, this is the handsomest exhibition of Jeff Hornacek I have ever seen.

When Shaggy Do and his hippie-hash ways cruised on over to say hi to his friend Furby—a short armless female dog toy, pointed at the ears with round ovular eyes—the two consummated their love.

It was the first time this cross-breed happened and it frightened them.

Jeff Hornacek came dribbling out of the womb with a basketball in his hands and a bad boyish haircut. For the rest of their lives the two TV superstars loved the man Hornacek from afar.

John Chaney, Longtime Coach, Temple Owls

Jim Henson killed Kermit the Frog.

Cubicles and turning 30 killed my belief in Droopey the Dog.

But Yoda, as I hard as I tried, lives on.

His death in a green paradigm of an alien's body with a long lanky robe was replaced with a black man's body and a coaching gig at Temple.

So, this explains "Chaney's ("Yoda's)" Zen-moving approach to intelligible basketball.

Aha! And for the longest time I wondered whether Chaney never made it out of the '60s.

But what do I know?

You humans know nothing...mmmmm...a body on a black block...mmmmm...face up and challenge...rise...jam yourself through one of life's many hoops...mmmmm... 

Sam Cassell, 1991-1993, Florida State Seminoles

I think Sam Cassell was either deaf or had short-term memory loss.

The man mouthed off and phoned home more than any extraterrestrial in the history of college and NBA games.

Either that or he's still bitter after trying out for a role in Spielberg's early-'80s hit ET, where he lost his chance at stardom to a hardwired alien-robot on wheels.

And they say technology is a good thing?

Well, not if you ask Cassell. Not only does he look more like ET than ET did, but he wanted a shot at Drew Barrymore.

Dikembe Mutombo, 1988-1991, Georgetown Hoyas

Repeat and rewind: 50 Cent is revisiting us.

I really cannot imagine what was going through God's mind when he decided how to make Dikembe Mutombo.

It began with a 15-year-old 50 Cent and one of the walking tree trolls in The NeverEnding Story. What followed is something I really shouldn't be telling you.

During spawning season, out came a piece of seven-foot pollen.

Once rooted in the hardwood, the living tree child liked slapping things—things called balls. After he swatted those things and burst into jolly laughter he shook his twiggy fingers in the air.

"That is something he learned from his father," Dikembe's mother tree says in a post-divorce interview with Barbara Walters.

Greg Ostertag, 1991-1995, Kansas Jayhawks

Joke of the day: What is a Karl Malone without a Greg Ostertag? A champion.

"Ba Ba Baby Ruth..."

"No Greg! Ti Ti Title."

He doesn't get it, Karl, and he never will.

"Oh, so this is why I am not considered to be the best power forward ever?"

Yes, Karl Malone, yes.

All lives are balanced on a scale. And your scale tipped when Greg Ostertag stumbled into it.

"I thought we had things in common. Similar accents 'n' stuff."

Well...you didn't really. Sloth speaks in a lingual called candy bar. He begins ever sentence with Baby Ruth and ends with Baby Ruth.

Second joke of the day: What separated Karl Malone from a title? A Baby Ruth.

"And to think we paid a salary when all he wanted was a candy bar?"

Yeah...that and a nose job.