Hooper on hoops

Times artist Steve Madden used Associated Press photos as the basis for these illustrations.

Tapping into every resource I could find -- including ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, USF basketball coach Seth Greenberg and the book Hoops Nation -- we present another basketball glossary. There are some you should use and some you shouldn't.

Good as gold

These were good in the '90s and they'll still fly, even though the word "fly" will not:

and one -- what player says after he's been fouled in the act of shooting. It's still in use, but Bilas says usage may vary depending on the shoe company your team plays with.

baller -- a player. Originated with "baller, shot caller" line from various rap songs.

brick -- a shot that has no chance of going in. Bilas says it's a building material we see far too often in today's game.

chump -- once a noun to describe a weak player, it's now a verb. Florida chumped South Carolina.

cleaning the glass -- a term used for rebounding because backboards are made of plexiglass. Greenberg calls rebounding, "high-altitude wrestling."

drop -- still good as a verb. He dropped 40 on the Salukis last night.

game -- If you've got game, you're still cool.

J -- jump shot. Still works after all these years.

smack -- it may be a new millennium, but guys are still talking trash or "running smack."

New flava

Impress your friends with these relatively new terms (at least they're new to this 39-year-old man):

feeling me -- versatile phrase that can be used to underscore basketball philosophy or talk trash. After you drain a jumper in your friend's face, ask, "You feeling me?"

garbage -- once a derisive term, Bilas says its now praise for a hard worker who may not be at the top of the scouting report.

glass eater -- derives from phrase "cleaning the glass."

leaking out -- once known as cherry picking, it now has a more stylized meaning.

mad ups -- the new version of "hops," it refers to a player's jumping ability.

mambo -- term used to describe animated head and shoulder fake, seen often at New York's legendary Rucker Park. Move can work on the court or in the club.

off the heezy fasheezy -- combines '90s term off the hook with renewed interest in gibberish. Proper usage: Jason Richardson's winning dunk was off the heezy fasheezy.

posterize -- if you make a particularly pretty dunk over your opponent, that player has been posterized.

pure -- term used to describe a player/baller's jumper or game. "His jumper is pure. His game is pure."

scrubs -- Longtime derogatory term that gained new acclaim with TLC's 1999 hit No Scrubs.

tight -- positive exclamation. Can be used in reference to a nice shot or the retro jersies that got LeBron James suspended.

Show your age:

Put these relics on the shelf or get embarrassed:

all that -- once used for exceptional, excellent. Now it's just a show on Nickelodeon.

bank's open -- once an utterance used to denote use of the backboard on a shot. Bilas notes that with the overwhelming use of ATMs, it doesn't matter anymore.

ball hog -- as bad as black hole. Greenberg said players think of ball hogs as "any player who wants me to pass the ball to him."

downtown -- once used for shots from behind the three-point arc. "From way downtown, bang." Bilas says only people over 40 who wear Chuck Taylors and socks to their knees use the term.

hops -- no longer a reference to jumping ability (see mad ups), it's just a bar/restaurant.

keep it -- once the preferred exclamation used by a defender after blocking a shot. It has been replaced by the more direct, "Get that #$%@# out of here."

jam -- you might get away with this reference to a dunk, but after Michael Jackson's Jam and Michael Jordan's Space Jam, you're on shaky ground.

splash -- once a term used to accentuate a jump shot. "Release, rotation, splash." Now it's just an old movie with Darryl Hannah.

trey -- once a cute name for a three-pointer, it is now heard on the court only as a reference to SportsCenter's Trey Wingo.

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