BALL SCREEN

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Day 2

—Scare Tactics: For the first time in tournament history, two No. 1 seeds (UVA and UNC) trail to 16 seeds at halftime. The Cavaliers were behind by 6 to Gardner-Webb and the Heels by 5. After intermission the Wahoos outscored the upstarts by 21 and the Tar Heels by 20 as both advance.

Colgate: Better to have loved and flossed…

—Pink Eye For The ‘Gate Guy: Colgate’s best player, 6’10” Rapolas Ivanauskas, the Patriot League Player of the Year, missed the entire second half with pink eye. He wears contacts and was unable to insert them. Ivanauskas took four shots and missed all of them and was a non-factor.

—Where’s The Drama?: Through two days and 32 games—in terms of games, the tourney has already passed the halfway mark—there have been zero buzzer-beaters or overtime games. In Friday’s action, no one even had the chance to attempt one. On Thursday, NMSU did and air-balled.

—Hot Halves: The three most prolific scoring outputs in a half thus far: 55, by UNC (2nd half), 54, by Duke (2nd half), and 53, by Gonzaga (1st half). Yes, those are all No. 1 seeds. The only other squad to put up a 50-point half thus far is Oklahoma, a No. 9 seed that scored 50 against Ole Miss in the first half. The Sooners’ 95-point game is the highest of th tourney. Lowest scoring half belongs to Abilene Christian, which put up 13 against Kentucky.

 

—Impressive Showings: Va. Tech and Oklahoma, which ran out to 22- and 17-point first-half leads, respectively. Also, the Pac-12 somewhat redeemed itself as both Oregon and Washington won.


Fall Guy: UCF’s 7’6″ Tacko Fall had 18 rebounds and will face Zion Williamson and Duke on Sunday. Get your seismographs ready.

The hyper-athletic Nassir Little

Big Little: There’s something Vernon Maxwell-meets-Dennis Rodman-ish about North Carolina frosh Nassir Little. Muscular and athletic and he always seems to be wherever the ball or action is. The 6’6″ Floridian had 19 points in just 17 minutes of action for the Heels yesterday. He’ll never lead his NBA team in scoring but he’ll be a fan favorite wherever he lands.

Adam Anteaters!: Wofford has the nation’s longest current win streak at 21 games, but coming in second is UC-Irvine at 17. The Anteaters (the most heavily played 12-seed this side of Murray State) took down Kansas State, which was without its top player, Jordan Wade. Both Wofford and UC-Irvine notched their first tourney wins in school history, as did the program we’re about to mention…

Homesley Not Homely: The leading scorer in the tournament among teams that advanced to the weekend is Liberty’s Caleb Homesley, who put up 30 in the Flames’ come-from-behind win versus Mississippi State.

Uncontested Shots

Okay, we find the Phil campaign somewhat amusing, though we gotta ask, “Isn’t yellow a primary color?”…Kudos to the broadcaster who added the cherry on top to Colgate guard Jordan Burns‘ 32-point performance. After the 6’0″ sophomore scored his final three to give him his point total (2nd-best of tourney thus far) in the waning seconds, the announcer noted that his high school football coach had told him he’d never play D-1 hoops. That’s the perfect announcing complement to a well-played game. Well done…I’m not digging the 5-man team chemistry of that TBS studio show. Coach Capel has the look of someone who’s hangry and just found out the kitchen closed 5 minutes ago but the bar’s still open; I know some people who read me think I have a strong dislike of a certain person on that crew but the truth is that we were once good friends and that whatever exchanges passed between us before (thanks for keeping that alive on the inter web forever, Awful Announcing; you’re doing the Lord’s work), he is terrific on TV. That studio show needs to subtract one to two people to do better…Steve Smith, for good and bad, doesn’t hold back on the opining. He made a fantastic point in Columbus yesterday about how you can talk about team chemistry on the bus and in the locker room but the real litmus test is watching how well a team helps on defense. True dat. The other point he made, one that was flat-out salt in the wounds, was noting that Colgate’s Ivanauskas, the pink eye victim, will feel bad today but what will really haunt him is all the years to come when he reflects on how he might’ve been the difference in an upset of Tennessee if only he’d been able to play. Here’s salt in your eye!…Are Makai Mason and Payton Pritchard the same dude?…Did Chris Webber need to mention twice that Kenny Smith’s son, who entered Lori Loughlin the game in the final minute Felicity Huffman for the Tar Heels, is there on merit Lori Loughlin and is not the Felicity Huffman product of entitlement?

 

Saturday Slate: Finally, the tournament should find some momentum and drama today. Top three games we are most looking forward to viewing: 1) Murray State-Florida State (6:10 p.m.), 2) Wofford-Kentucky (2:40 p.m.) 3) Gonzaga-Baylor (7:10 p.m.)

BALL SCREEN

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters


As @TheBenSwain wondered, “Why is Luke Maye on here twice?” 

Day 1

—Ja Rules: Murray State’s Ja Morant goes for 15-10-10 and notches the first triple-double in NCAA tourney since Draymond Green in 2012 as Murray State blows out Marquette.

—Wofford Wollops: The Terriers go on a game-ending 17-2 run to take out yet another Big East school, conference champ Seton Hall. Fletcher Magee becomes the NCAA’s all-time leader in made threes (506) by shooting 7 of 12 from beyond the arc. Love the pogo-stick three, by the way. Wofford’s first ever tourney victory.


—Izzo Wigs Out: No, Tom Izzo did not actually touch freshman Aaron Henry, but that’s hardly the point (more below).

—Football Conference Power: The B1G and SEC go a combined 9-0 on Day 1. All told, Power 5 conferences went 12-2 with the lone losses coming to other Power 5 schools.

—Gonzaga’s Back: The Zags, who scored 47 in last week’s WCC Championship Game loss to St. Mary’s, posted 53 in half one in routing Fairleigh Dickinson 87-49. The Gaels, meanwhile, fell to Villanova, the lone Big East survivor.


The moment we realized Maryland was going to survive Belmont

—Windler Warrior: Belmont’s Dylan Windler scores 35, high man on Day One, but the Bruins fall by 2 to Maryland. Was Windler’s effort the best thing Scott Van Pelt saw yesterday (in person)?

—NMissU: The Aggies pass up an uncontested layup, down 2 late, for a three-point shot that misses. Get the foul call but shooter misses 2 of 3. Get yet another final-second chance, air ball a three. Yeesh surplus.

—If You Can Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Baylor’s Makai Mason joins a very short list, we assume, of players who lead a team to a tournament victory (the Yale grad transfer scored 21 points in the Bears’ defeat of Syracuse) that he formerly defeated in the tournament (the Bulldogs upset the Waco school in the first round of the 2016 NCAAs).

Daily Barkley

“Chess is really difficult, I heard”

–Charles’ checkers speech

Wondering if Bill (left) gave the Cards the pre-game “Meatballs” speech: “It just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter!”

Uncontested Shots

When an announcer says, “Almost a travel” or “almost a carry,” 100% of the time that means it was simply an uncalled travel or carry…We love that the name of the host city is written on the side of every court, even if the glare from the venue’s lights make them difficult to read; Still, good job on that one, NCAA…We’ve got nothing personal against Casey Stern, but the dude who finished runner-up to him for that TBS studio host gig must be a tad non-plussed…Do yourself a favor and keep a tally of how many times the CBS studio dudes, particularly Charles and Kenny, reference something but cannot recall the name of the player or coach or school and then Ernie has to step in to supply the name. Yesterday we noted this on Twitter and moments later Kenny was making an LSU in ’19 comparison to Michigan in ’90 and could not recall the names of Bill Frieder-Steve Fisher…I know I’m an old-timer in terms of rules, but we need to eliminate the tuck-the-ball-under-your-arm drive to the hoop maneuver. Never mind that it can only be accomplished by taking an extra step, which leads me to this question: Why isn’t it a “gather step” when a post player moves his other foot on the low post?…How poetic to see Bill Murray, whose son is a Louisville assistant, rooting once again against the Gophers; you’ve gotta wonder is someone at the Selection Committee set that up, though we wouldn’t give them this much credit. Alas, for the Cardinals, it was not “a Cinderella story”…Tell me you laughed when you saw the “Introduction to Basket Weaving” ad; does the NCAA really want to be calling extra attention to this skill during the tournament?…

H To The Izzo

It’s difficult to opine on the Izzo Incident without, by the very act of mentioning it, making it appear bigger than it was. But we’ll try. Yes, if you watch the video (above) closely, you’ll note that the only humans who actually put hands on other humans here were the Spartan players placing hands on Izzo (to hold him back). So, yes, I gotcha.

But here’s why, for us, it’s so wrong: When a 64 year-old moves toward an 18- or 19- year-old in a threatening manner, he’s unconsciously acknowledging that the only reason he may do so with impunity is that he holds all the cards. He has job security and is financially set for life. The player’s hoops future, meanwhile, rests in his hands. The coach has all the leverage, which is the only reason he can presume that a physical altercation between the two won’t end up with him laying unconscious. Which is how it would end up any other time these two squared off. So by moving toward Henry the way Izzo did, he’s exploiting his position.

Bark at your player all you want. But when you move at him as if you’re going to physically manhandle him, you’re being a bully. Because in the real world you’d be KO’d.

We thought it was telling when Reggie Miller, seated courtside, offered, “I don’t mind the passion and the fire, especially if it’s directed at—with good intent.” Are you paying attention? Reggie was about to say “a freshman” but then caught himself and realized how out-of-touch that would sound. So, deftly, he quickly changed it to “with good intent.” Me, personally, I’m sick of “good intent.” Give me “good results” instead.

Hey Ja!

While only attempting eight shots yesterday afternoon, Murray State sophomore Ja Morant totally controlled the action in the Racers’ runaway win against Marquette. We liked what Kenny the Jet said about him: “He’s quick, but he doesn’t hurry.” So true. There were moments when Morant would grab a defensive board and lead a fast break that led to an assist, but there were just as many when he’d slow the action, wait for a pick to develop, and let the play come to him.

One final pleasure of watching him play? I’d pay just to see him dribble out of half-court double teams.

We’ve been extolling Ja for two months on this site as the only other player in the same galaxy as Zion Williamson. Yesterday, with his first real opportunity, he showed the world why. Zion and Ja (what outstanding and marketable names, by the way) are picks one and two in the NBA draft, in no particular order. Though we think Zion will go first. But no team (Phoenix? New York? Cleveland? Dallas?) is going to mind settling for the second dude in that pair. No team. Different skill sets, but both are WOW! players.

And we like R.J. Barrett as much as you do. He’s just not a human dynamo the way those two are. He’s more of a Tracy McGrady type, which is to say he’s a scorer but he’s not a lead-us-to-the-promised-land level talent.

***

Maybe this is the Snowflake Libtard in us coming out, but we’re a little dubious about Nike’s “Family” warmups, just as we are dubious about constantly being bombarded on Twitter with videos of “soldier returns home after a year away and surprises son/daughter” videos. We appreciate military service; we also understand that military service is voluntary (like Hyman Roth, “this is the business we’ve chosen”) and we’re not really at war with anyone in that a president Congress has to technically declare war. We appreciate the military servicemen, but we appreciate teachers every bit as much. Just as we appreciate family, but there’s no proof (in fact, quite the contrary) that being part of a family makes you a more valuable member of society or a better person.

File the above paragraph under “Unpopular Opinions.” But we’ll stand by it. Meanwhile, the push toward military worship and family above all and law-and-order are all aspects of the same movement. And that is to strip away the freedom and/or the voice of the individual. Pay attention.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


NZL > NRA. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you get money out of politics.

Starting Five

Luke Maye could finish his North Carolina career with more national championships than Michael Jordan

Tourney Time

This is the first day of the sports year. The Super Bowl is the last day of the sports year. The six weeks or so in between are a void of frigid despair that only exist to help us better appreciate the other 10-plus months.

It’s also the first full day of spring. You made it again, America. Damn proud of you.

Your top seeds: Duke, Gonzaga, Virginia, North Carolina

Our Final Four: Duke, Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina

Best first-round matchup: Marquette and Markus Howard versus Murray State and Jam O’Rant (or, if you prefer, Ja Morant). These are the top two scorers in the entire tournament facing off in Round 1, today at 4:30 EDT.


Sexy Sleepers (teams that could advance to second weekend)

East:  Belmont (11), Yale (14)

West: Murray State (13), Buffalo (6)

South: Oregon (12), UC-Irvine (13)

Midwest: Wofford (7), New Mexico State (12)

2. For Pete’s Sake

Really was impressed by South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 37, in this interview on Morning Joe yesterday. Intelligent. Honest. Fair. Thoughtful. Insightful. Unsullied.

Mayor Pete: “The most important job of an elected leader is to call people to their highest values and to bring them together.”

Honestly, it really feels as if he watched every episode of The West Wing twice and in between watched every Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood that aired. Smart, smart dude and not about to be tripped up by any gotcha questions. There’s a sense, unlike what we’ve been dealing with for two years, that he actually does know what he’s talking about (as opposed to just continually declaring, emptily, “I know what I’m talking about!”).

He’s going to be the smartest guy in the room (he speaks about 4 or 5 languages, at least) in any room he walks into (we suspect he’s heard of Aleppo) and it’s going to be a matter of people getting past his youth or his open sexuality (he’s married) or the fact that he’s not going to flop in the mud with the incumbent.

Should be verrrry interesting to see where this campaign heads…

3. There’s A New Stick In Town

Don’t misunderestimate (I know) the symbolic significance of Tampa Bay’s 5-4 overtime win at Washington last night. Yes, we’re talking about the NHL. Hockey. Yes. Here, in this blog.

The Lightning defeated the Stanley Cup champs, the Capitals, in overtime and were led once again by Nikita Kucherov, who had two goals. The Bolts have by far the top record in the NHL (the victory gives them 118 points; the next highest total is Boston’s and Calgary’s 97) and Kucherov is the favorite to win the Hart Trophy as the league MVP.

The 25 year-old Russian is the NHL’s leader in points (goals + assists) with 119 and while his compatriot, the Caps’ Alex Ovechkin, still leads the NHL in goals scored (48), he’s now 33 with a streak of white in that feral mane. Kucherov isn’t physically imposing (5’11”, 178) the way Ovi is, but he’s been the league’s top skater this season.

4. Fake Moos*

*The judges will also accept “MooToo Movement” and “We’re With Leather”

A couple of days ago, noob congressman Devin Nunes (R-Cal) brought a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, specifically a pair of parody accounts (@DevinCow, @DevinNunesMom) that openly mocked him. Seems like the kind of thing senior legislative leadership should be devoting energy and resources to doing, no?

Nunez always has the look of “the presentation didn’t go well, did it?”

Anyway, at the time Nunes brought the suit, @DevinCow had a little more than 3,000 followers. This morning it has more than 500,000 followers, or more than 25% more than Nunes himself has on Twitter. That’s what’s known as a self-own (and not a cellphone).

Our mom and dad (and yours) always had the best advice on taunting: ignore them and they’ll stop. Too bad Nunes either had bad parents or failed to heed their advice.

5. Fantastic Finland

For yesterday’s World Happiness Day, the U.N. issued its annual World Happiness Report and for the second consecutive year, Finland finished atop the list. A Scandinavian nation that pretty much resembles northern Minnesota, Finland comes by its happiness honestly.

Scandinavia and Viking-related nations scored well overall, as the top five was rounded out by Denmark, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands. The next five were Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Austria.

If you’re thinking, They’re all basically the same country, aren’t they? Well, we were thinking that as well.

Music 101

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

Few songs invited more mockery, but the Crash Test Dummies penned a global hit in 1993 with this plodding tune. A No. 1 hit in seven countries, including Australia, Germany and Norway, it also was a top five track in the U.S.A. and UK. Not bad for a folk group from Winnipeg.

Remote Patrol

March Madness

ALL DAMN DAY (beginning at 9:15 a.m. on the Best Coast!)

NOON CBS TRU

1 p.m. TNT

1:30 p.m. TBS

Will Ja rule today?

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

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Starting Five

Nets And Yahoo

Down 103-78 to start the fourth quarter in Sac-Town, the Brooklyn (“Yo, BROOKLYN!”) Nets outscore the Kings 45-18 to win 123-121. D’Angelo Russell leads the charge, scoring 27 fourth-period points (44 for the game) while Rondae Hollis-Jefferson scored the game-winner, a spinning back-to-the-hoop layup, with 0.8 ticks left.


It’s the fourth 25-points or more fourth-quarter deficit comeback since 1954, the launch of the shot-clock era. If you really wanna savor this, visit Brooklynite Marcia Herold‘s tweets from last night as the comeback began.

2. Play Ball!

Yes, the Major League Baseball season is underway. The Mariners defeated the Athletics 9-7 last night in the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Ichiro, back in his native land, had two at-bats, walking and flying out. Domingo Santana smacked a grand slam.

The boys of summer actually played an official MLB game in winter. It’s the earliest ever start to a baseball season (March 20).

3. Free Silo

How biblical is the flooding in Nebraska? Swollen rivers and late-winter ice chunks made for record floods and devastating losses for the state’s farmers. What you may not have heard from the Oval Office is that farms filing for Chapter 12 bankruptcy protection rose by 19% last year across the Midwest, the highest level in a decade. This according to the American Farm Bureau.

And now this late-winter flood is going to be the coup de grace for many a generational family farm in the Cornhusker state. “It’s probably over for us, now,” Anthony Ruzicka, whose alfalfa and corn fields were filled with giant ice chunks, told The New York Times. “Financially, how do you recover from something like this?”

Torrential rains aren’t the fault of the president (although Jerry Falwell, Jr., would probably claim they are if that POTUS were a Kenyan-born Muslim), but a tariff stare down with China that had farmers storing their crops, waiting for a brighter day to sell, is.

4. Bottom-Feeders

Maybe some enterprising Nebraskan will copy this idea: in the southern Norwegian town of Lindesnes, the world’s largest—and Europe’s first—underwater restaurant has just opened. It is named “Under” and we don’t suggest you ask if there is outdoor seating.

On the menu (glad y0u asked): locally caught fish, seabirds and wild sheep. If you’re curious as to where Lindesnes is, it’s pretty much the southernmost point of Norway, on the North Sea.

5. Carnage In Mozambique

More storm devastation news: In the southeastern African nation of Mozambique, which sits along the Indian Ocean and is just to the west of Madagascar, a cyclone has claimed at least 200 lives. You and I don’t know anyone from Mozambique, most likely, which is why this catastrophic storm isn’t receiving the attention of say, Donald Trump’s latest verbal slap fight with George Conway or Megan McCain.

Isn’t it odd how back in the Old Testament a spate of deadly storms and floods would signal that God was angry with mankind, but now we just explain it all away with fancy meteorological terms?


Also, in case you were wondering, a hurricane is a circular air mass that spins counterclockwise and is the term we use for such storms in the Caribbean and Atlantic. A cyclone spins clockwise and that is the terms we use for such storms in the southern hemisphere.

Biblio Files

Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch (2016)

Our first reader suggestion comes from Megan Stanage, who writes, “It’s a thriller with sci-fi and such a crazy theme that it makes you rethink every decision you’ve made in your entire life.”

Oh, Megan. I’ve been doing that for quite some time.

Remote Patrol

First Four

Arizona State vs. St. John’s

9 p.m. TRU

This will most likely be a rock fight, but the coaches are HOF’ers and we’ve got family that graduated from both schools so we’re required to watch.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 8 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


From La La Land, the Director’s Cut, we assume…

Starting Five

Bracket To The Future

While ESPN’s Rece Davis was chatting with Dickie Via Satellite yesterday afternoon, some noob in Bristol accidentally posted the women’s tournament bracket—whose reveal was scheduled for 7 p.m.—on the side of the screen and on the bottom crawl. You had one job. No one even reacted to it for a few minutes, proof that not even ESPN employees watch ESPN all that much any more.

You had one job.

We’re not mad. We’re kind of giddy. We imagine Adnan Virk enjoyed a good laugh at this one. The question going forward is whether anyone at ESPN has enough of a sense of humor to make this a “Not Top 10” moment.

You had one job.

2. Rosemary’s Baby

Follow the money. No private institution did more to prop up Donald Trump’s false claims of successful billionaire status in the past 20 years than Deutsche Bank. You cinephiles may recall an early scene in Casablanca when Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) refuses a prominent Deutsche Bank executive entry into his backroom casino; Rick had the right idea.

Vrablic, circled in red, one of the 20 million people who attended Trump’s inauguration in person

This withering New York Times piece reveals how the German national bank, particularly private banker Rosemary Vrablic, abandoned all fiscal common sense and basic decency to get in bed with Trump time after time after time, to the tune of $2 billion in loans, in exchange for being seen as edgy and standing out among lenders while also enjoying being in his celebrity orbit.

The most astonishing reveal, for us: After Trump defaulted on his loan for his Chicago hotel, he attempted to sue Deutsche Bank (claiming the reason for his fiscal troubles were a force majeure, “an act of God,” based on the fact that Allan Greenspan had called the sub-prime crisis an economic “tsuanmi.” But here’s the kicker: later Deutsche loaned Trump the money to pay back the loan to…Deutsche. The balls on that guy.)

It took nearly 70 years, but the Germans are finally exacting revenge for losing World War II.

3. High Nunes

It’s not easy breaking into the Top 10 of Trump Tools, but Devin has been holding down a 5 to 7 position for 2 years now.

California Congressman and Corey Lewandowski-wannabe Devin Nunes has filed a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter for, basically, allowing its users to exercise free speech.

Snowflake!

Of course, the insidious aspect of this is that Nunes’s action, hoping others will follow suit by filing suits, is to pummel outlets such as Twitter with lawsuits that will be costly simply to defend, thereby twisting their arms to stop allowing free expression. We’ll see how Jack Dorsey and others react.

In the meantime, it’s instructive to remember that in February of 2017 Nunes co-sponsored a bill called the “Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act.”

If there’s one signifying trait of Trump Tools, it’s the absence of acknowledging their unabashed hypocrisy. They get that quality straight from the boss himself.

4.  And In The Process, Improving Their Seed

*The judges will not accept “Whore Eagle!”

So autocorrect also plagues control room graphics computers, too?

Either way, congratulations to the Tigers. And it’s nice to see that Rifle is not the only coed NCAA sport.

5. Record-Sized Trout Caught


The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (if that’s what they’re calling themselves this season) are about to land the largest fish ever caught: Mike Trout, for 12 years. What did the Angels use as bait? Southern California lifestyle and $430 million.

Reserves

Net Nyet…

Biblio Files

The Hidden Harbor Mystery

Frank. Joe. Fenton. Aunt Gertrude. Chet (and Iola) Morton. Biff Hooper. Callie Shaw. Tony Prito. The entire Bayport gang.

We haven’t picked up a Hardy Boys book in nearly 40 years, but we owe F.W. Dixon (whoever he/she/they was/were) an incalculable debt of gratitude because it was these books that instilled in us our love of reading. Mom and dad would blanch at the idea of giving me a quarter for a copy of Action Comics or Detective Comics (I was a DC lad), but they never thought twice about forking over $3 for a Hardy Boys book.

Nearest I can figure Bayport was either located on Long Island or Connecticut, or should have been. Frank, dark-haired and 18, and Joe, blond and one year younger, took us all over this country and later the globe and for a small kid opened up a world of adventure. They made sleuthing so much fun—and no one ever got shot.

What Harry Potter is to this latest generation, the Hardy Boys were to mine. Or at least to me.

(So we’re going to use this space to frequently highlight favorite books of ours. We invite you to send in some of yours, but instead of doing so in the Comments, please email us at trumansparks88@gmail.com. If we use your book we’ll happily provide your name and a comment or two you’ve added. There will be no pecuniary reward, but upon your death you will achieve total consciousness).

Remote Patrol

From Russia With Love

Netflix

Binge, James Binge.

The streaming service is doing us an invaluable (Her Majesty’s Secret) service by making available, by our unofficial count, 18 007 films. That includes the very best, such as this one, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me. We suggest you take them in order, beginning with 1962’s Dr. No. while this one, which is set largely in Turkey, comes next.