PJ Guippone

Last week, I wrote about how Joel Berry was still in college. It is certainly a surprise to quite a few people.

Soon after that world-busting news was broken by me, though, some more Berry news broke (no pun intended) that could be a bit more important. As the tweet Bomani Jones quoted teases, Berry broke his hand and will miss the beginning portion of the season because of that injury. This has major implications for UNC, who will be looking to make it to a third-straight championship game. It will be a bit harder without the leadership of their senior (maybe?) point guard.

Today, the news got a little deeper.

And so we get another reminder that athletes are actually real people too. Even more, we get another reminder that college athletes are actually just regular college kids. Joel, why couldn’t you have just thrown your remote at the tv following your game-losing owned goal on a corner kick in FIFA? Why did you have to use your hand. Your beautiful, nearly 40% three-point shooting hand. Why break the source of your 3.6 assists and 1.4 steals per game? I’ve seen things broken because of video games: numerous remotes, exactly two TVs, at least three or four watermelons, an oven door. But a hand? Of a dude that actually does things on a daily basis? On a door? You got to at least break that goddamn door, my dude.

Admittedly, losing to Theo Pinson in something must suck. The manager part I can let slide because managers are just normal kids and that’s what they do. We don’t get to break people’s ankles in real life, so instead we do it virtually and then get hype as fuck and talk more shit than Draymond Green. But losing to Pinson? I truly, truly hope this wasn’t in 2k, because just gauging from Pinson’s timing in real life on offense, he would probably brick every three point attempt in the game. Theo Pinson probably can’t hit a three with Steph Curry, which is basically like not being able to score with Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl.

No one summed this brutal situation up better than Joel Berry’s Hand itself.

Hopefully for Berry, this doesn’t affect his season. And take a break from Xbox for a while, kiddo.