taking next thursday off
it looks like St. Joe's is finally going to lose, leaving the whole NCAA tournament even more wide open than it already was. t.s.o.a. has a few ideas about who we'll be picking, but we'll save those. we will remind everyone now that over the past 15 years or so, teams from Utah have averaged at least 1 first round win per year (they were 1-3 last year, though Utah State took finalist Kansas to the final moments before losing by 3). let's check in on this year's batch of Beehive State contenders:
BYU: looking good for an at-large berth out of the MWC. beat Okla St earlier this year.
Southern Utah: ousted in quarterfinals of Mid-Continent tournament.
Utah: 21-8 and 3rd in the Mountain West, but might need to win conference tourney to get in.
Utah State: 25-2 overall, 17-1 in the Big West. they're in and they're dangerous.
Weber State: eliminated in semifinals of Big Sky tournament. too bad too as these guys are always a sentimental favorite (moreso!) since we lived about 1/2 mile from the campus for a few years, and because our shocking pick of them to upset in North Carolina in 1999 provided the margin of victory for our winning entry that year.
checking in with the unique lexicon that springs up this time of year, we find it highly amusing when those who don't own the trademark to "March Madness" resort to calling it "March Mayhem". what if someone trademarks that phrase? "March Morass" perhaps? bonus linguistic question: which terminology for the group between "the Sweet Sixteen" and "the Final Four" do you prefer, "The Elite Eight" or "The Great Eight"?
p.s. this was entry #100!
Comments
hey jamie! i'll go with "elite eight". think about it: final four, sweet sixteen, elite eight. nice symmetry there, no? what is that anyways, assonance? (so much for that english degree...)
Posted by: Christian | March 11, 2004 03:40 PM
i've actually never heard "great eight." howzabout "march malarkey"?
also, for i second i thought christian laettner found the apes and posted but as you and i both know, laettner graduated with a degree in sociology.
and is it really lame that i got emotional reading CNNSI's 64 things to love about March Madness?
ok finally, i can't believe st. joe's lost today.
Posted by: hong | March 11, 2004 06:10 PM
i thought of another good one: March Mania. and xtian - i believe that's "alliteration". and i think i like "great eight" better just to break up all the sameness. also, "elite" is almost always used behind the word "cultural" or in front of the words "escort service".
Posted by: jamie | March 11, 2004 06:45 PM
hmm...good point, j. i hate to be *elitist*. great eight, it is. as for getting emotional this time of year...show me someone who has a dry eye after hearing "one shining moment" on the first monday in april and i'll show you a person who has a heart of stone. i loved that bit about "what does clark kellogg do the other 11 months of the year?".
Posted by: Christian | March 11, 2004 06:58 PM
i don't even know what "one shining moment" is. what is my heart made of?
Posted by: crispin | March 11, 2004 07:24 PM
I'm with you on your Utah State boosting, partially because coach Stew Morrill coached the mighty Montana Griz once upon a time. It's a pretty simple game when you can play defense and shoot. But I don't think we have any idea of how good they are. Can they beat a good team away from home? They haven't done it yet this year.
Posted by: David | March 11, 2004 08:37 PM
BTW: GW is going to beat Xavier and make the A-10 final, so catch 'em on TV this Saturday!
Posted by: David | March 11, 2004 08:38 PM
The Great Eight is or was the name of a preseason tournament but regardless of copyright issues, it's a bad name. What's more elite that the final eight teams playing division I basketball? Great is a word I use to describe my morning, whether I'm in a good mood or not. If you're not going to give them a name with dignity and panache, just call them the Eight.
Also, I liked how you picking Weber St over UNC was the shocking element, not Weber St actually beating UNC. It was a hell of a celebration when you won that pool though.
Last college basketball comment, my favorite quote of the year. When John Cheney was asked what's wrong with college basketball, he said, "Dick Vitale can't go ten words without saying Duke." Then he threatened to kill the reporter.
Posted by: jake | March 12, 2004 10:22 AM
duke related tidbit:
"The Tokion “world’s Biggest pillow fight” event at Volume that would have featured a Ratatat performance has now been cancelled. They were attempting to break the previous record of a 720 person pillow fight, but the record was just recently topped this past weekend by 1076 people at Duke University. Capacity at Volume is only 800"
shouldn't they have been busy with their exams or waiting in their tents in kryskweskiville?
Posted by: hong | March 12, 2004 01:28 PM
i see your 1076 person pillow fight and raise you approximately 424. estimates for the Dec 1986 pillow fight at BYU were over 1500 students. throw in a couple news helicopters, tv crews, radio coverage, and what appeared to be every cop in Utah valley. i still have newspaper clippings from papers all over the states.
Posted by: Porgo | April 7, 2004 09:43 PM