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Russ Smith, a.k.a. the BasedKing, goes mainstream

Russ Smith

If you follow me on twitter, than you surely know by now that Russ Smith, the diminutive Louisville scoring machine, is my favorite player in the country.

He was last year as well, but that was before Smith decided to turn off some of his off-court hijinks and focus himself entirely on hoops. Now, Smith is putting together an all-american caliber season, which means that the rest of the country has been let in on my secret.

Luke Winn of SI.com shares the same infatuation with the little guy that Rick Pitino has dubbed “Russdiculous”, and while I will claim the glory of “discovering” Smith, I’ll allow Winn his time to shine. Because he not only wrote an amazing feature on Smith -- who calls himself the BasedKing, as a roommate he calls Dark Slime and who lives in a fantasy world where he has tea parties at Waffle House (seriously) -- but he also put together 11 Russdiculous facts that he couldn’t fit into his feature.

And seriously, everything about this kid’s story is awesome. Which is why you need to go read both of those stories. But I’ll give you my four favorites facts that Winn dug up:

- He once got stuck in an icebath because he drinks too much tea:

The BasedKing holds tea parties at a Waffle House near Louisville’s airport, where he indulges in hot, caffeinated beverages against the advice of Hina, who worries about their dehydrating effect. He once had to rescue a fully cramped-up Smith from a postpractice cold tub.

- His dad once tried to stay in jail to play a basketball game:

As a teenager visiting now-defunct Action Park in Vernon Township, N.J., he was arrested and incarcerated for giving a beating to someone who dared suggest that Big Russ and his friends wait in line, like everyone else, for a water ride. When Lou d’Almeida, the founder of the Gauchos AAU team—for which Big Russ then played, and whose early-youth programs he now manages—arranged to get him out, the response was not what d’Almeida expected. “Some guys heard I was a Gaucho,” Big Russ told him, “and now they’re counting on me to go one-on-one against the best guy from the other side of the jail. Could you wait till next week, so I can play the game?”

- Russ Smith almost left school during his freshman season, but what saved is season was a pep talk and a 1-7 shooting performance ... in his boxers:

“The crazy thing is, I didn’t even get fully dressed for it -- I had ankle socks on, and I normally play in three thick socks. I didn’t have an undershirt. And instead of my normal compression shorts I was just wearing boxers. I was saying to myself, ‘This is it, I’m going to sit through this game and then leave after.’

“But the team was playing bad against West Virginia and coach Pitino came to me at the end of the bench and said, ‘You’re going in. Go out and play hard, because no one is playing hard right now.’ I was like, alright, every time I touch the ball, I’m going to do something. I think I was 2-for-8, with a few steals, a few rebounds, and we came back from down 11. I subbed out with three minutes left, everybody was happy, and we ended up winning by one on Peyton [Siva]'s layup at the buzzer. After that, I stayed.”

This kid is so awesome.

You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.