Wednesday, May 17, 2017, Paul Hunsberger

5:57

Wednesday faster than Tuesday? And that's even with not understanding the theme until I was finished with the whole thing and went back to look at the clues. So almost all of my theme answers were filled in by crosses, until the entirety could be surmised by the patterns.

I actually like the concept of the theme: two word phrases are set up in order from top to bottom such that the second word of each phrase links to the first word of the next one in another well accepted phrase. Thus: DOUBLEBACK is followed by COURTCASE, and the crossover of BACK/COURT is clued across the two clues as "Area that an N.B.A. team has eight ... ... seconds to clear".

I like the loop aspect of the answers, that it comes around from the bottom to the top at the end with SEEING/DOUBLE. To that end, the middle answer, CLOSEDCIRCUIT refers to the entire theme as well. That's nicely done. I wish I'd understood as I was solving, but that's a side effect of going for fast times. You could certainly argue about the benefit of time-based solving versus the enjoyment of working through a clever concept as it's being presented... For me, those aspects come into play more on Thursday through Saturday.

Some nice answers in the fill today. I was particularly taken by the pairing of IHEARYOU and TOMMYROT in the SE. SATCHMO is always welcome, especially as it crosses three theme answers. Nice find there.

1A: Muscles worked by bench presses (PECS) - D. Common and uninteresting.
Fave: OUTS (69D: Results of sacrifices). Good clue, unexpected answer, and it fits as the last answer of the puzzle.
Least fave: EHOW (Website for D.I.Y.ers). Just... well, I see it's a real thing, but it made me think of all of those E- answers popping up. Has anybody done a puzzle with this sort of thing? Clue: Online specks. Answer: "emotes". Clue: Online bon mots. Answer: "equips". Any other good examples?

- Colum