the shrewdness of apes

[quick ed. note: a change to my ACC entry is necessary because BC is now definitely in while Georgia Tech still has some work to do. i still think they beat BC to make it 7 from the ACC, but we'll see. Clemson or Florida St. could still overtake them with a strong showing in the conference tournament. these are the perils of doing these so early, but i would never finish them otherwise, so oh well.]

Atlantic 10
It was just a few years ago (2004, to be exact) that the A10 had 4 teams in the NCAAs, including St. Joseph's as a #1 seed (the other teams were Xavier, Dayton and RIchmond). Back in the 90s and early 00s, teams like UMass, Rhode Island, GW and Temple all had several good years to get the conference some respect and produce NBA-caliber players. Now they're looking like they might be a 1-bid conference with a chance to "steal" a bid from someone else if Xavier doesn't win the tournament this year. I even read something calling the A10 a mid-major which seems a better fit here than for the MVC or Mountain West. Even last year the conference got little respect, as GW went undefeated through the conference schedule, then got bounced from the A10 tournament and ended up with an 8 seed despite a 26-2 record. Of course, Duke housed them in the 2nd round.

The Hopeless: Richmond, St. Bonaventure, LaSalle, Temple, Charlotte, Duquesne
These teams are all terrible, but with the exception of Charlotte, they all return their best players next year which should improve the league as a whole. Duquesne had a 5K fun run mid-season with 5 straight victories including wins over Dayton and Xavier. LaSalle lost to UMBC, Coppin St. and Delaware, but did manage to beat the NJ Institute of Technology (motto: I Can't Believe They're Not D-III!).
The Dreamers: Fordham, Dayton, St. Louis, GW, St. Joseph's, Rhode Island
GW played well early, beating Virginia Tech and clobbering USC for a half (before folding in the 2nd half), but they don't have a real quality win or a consistent scorer. St. Joe's was on a bit of a run before a loss to rancid Richmond and another to Xavier tonight. Dayton beat Louisville and Creighton back in the fall, but even after winning at Temple tonight, they're 2-10 on the road. The most interesting thing about URI is that they have a player named "Parfait Bitee." Fordham is just happy not to be in the "Hopeless" category.
The Contenders: Xavier, UMass
One of these teams should win the conference tournament and UMass better hope it's them because an away win over Louisville will not be enough for an at-large bid. Xavier should be in with non-conference wins over VCU, Villanova, Illinois and Kansas St. (all of whom they could be battling for bubble spots). Both are veteran teams with a chance to sweep through Atlantic City (with TSOA in attendance! Reports to follow, I hope.), but I think UMass may fall victim to an upset by a hot team, leaving Xavier to collect the hardware and the bid.

I'm skipping the Big East for a second because there's 16 goddamn teams in that league to bring you....

The Big South
Hey, the Big South has an at-large contender! And a bunch of other teams I don't know much about. But since when has that ever stopped me?
Who The Hell Are These Guys?: Charleston Southern, Radford, VMI, Liberty, UNC-Asheville, Coastal Carolina
4 of these teams were eliminated from the conference tournament last night so they're sort of irrelevant, though I will mention that Coastal Carolina's nickname is the "Chanticleers" which I thought was some sort of pirate, but is actually a rooster named Chaucey. I think that's what the other knights on the jousting team called Geoffrey Chaucer. VMI's claim to fame is their #1 Tempo rating thanks to a full-court-press-and-hockey-style-substitution game plan that resulted in them losing 7 games in which they scored at least 100 points. Asheville is famous for being the only gay-friendly city north of Florida and south of the Mason-Dixon line (and also as the birthplace of Shirley Hemphill of What's Happening!! fame).
The Contenders: Winthrop, High Point
High Point really has no at-large shot with no quality wins and bad losses to the likes of Longwood, so they have to hope they can knock off Winthrop (or have someone else do their dirty work). I'll go ahead and predict that that will happen. But if Winthrop makes it to at least the conference final, they should be in (and I would put them iun regardless). Their 4 losses are to UNC, Wisconsin (in OT), Texas A&M and Maryland. That's 3 top-10 teams and another team in the top 20 (after tonight's sweep of Duke). Plus they beat Mississippi State, ODU and Missouri St. all on the road. That - plus they're undefeated conference record - should put them in at a #10 or so and give them a chance to win a game against someone.

TSOA's picks thus far:
ACC: UNC, Va. Tech, Virginia, Maryland, Duke, BC, Ga. Tech
A10: Xavier
Big South: Winthrop, High Point
Spots awarded: 24 out of 65 (including 14 conferences that will definitely only get 1 bid)

Posted by Jamie at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

by the standards of chain restaurants in malls (not a high bar to set, i'll admit), Buffalo Wild Wings delivered the goods on Saturday. things got off to a bit of a slow start when we had to wait about 20 minutes only to get shoehorned into a space too small for our entire group. but they did have that bar trivia that's always a crowd pleaser and goes a long way toward redeeming the character flaws of the genre. plus, we had a good waiter which is key with a large party in settings like this.

after an adjacent table was procured, the parade of wings began with 12 of the Blazin' variety. Blazin' is the hottest of the 14 sauce flavors and they run a contest around it - if you can put down 12 of them in less than 6 minutes you get a free t-shirt and a Polaroid up on the wall by the entrance. the 6-minute time frame seemed pretty generous, but we wanted to see just how hot these things were going be. the waiter gave the standard "you sure you want to do that?" response, and i was expecting them to produce a face-melting, instant pain. but there was no waiver to sign, and 5 or 6 people gave them a try and no one thought they were unbearable. they were hot for sure, but it was much more of a slow burn that lingered but was definitely manageable even without the bleu cheese. emboldened, Brooklyn Viola decided to take the challenge while the rest of the 200 wings and assorted fried foods began to stream out of the kitchen. i recall there being onion rings, mini corn-dogs, buffalo chips (big fried potato rounds), fried mushrooms, and chicken fingers going around at the very least.

as stated in this space, my goal was to put away 32 wings to commemorate each year of my presence on this earth. i was pretty confident that i could do it and maybe even surpass it. i had resolved to resist the temptation of the celery and bleu cheese (which i love almost as much as the wings) and all the other fried goodness, and i fared reasonably well with this goal. the celery seal was broken fairly early on due to the first 3 Blazin' wings, but when the batch of 50 Hot wings arrived it was eyes on the prize. other flavors arrived in smaller batches, and pretty soon the gluttony was seriously under way. all in all, i tasted 9 of the 14 sauce flavors in various quantities. the Mango Habanero may have been my favorite of the exotic varieties. with about 20 people chowing down, there were piles of bones, napkins, and celery and ramekins of dressing on every available surface. i think just about every one of the 14 sauces was consumed at some point or another by someone.

this picture does not do justice to the carnage that was wrought

after a short time, Viola's challenge arrived and we all slowed down to watch. working steadily and methodically he left no doubt as to whether he was up to it, devouring all 12 wings in about 1:45 without any breaks for liquids or other analgesics. based on casual observation of the wall of fame, that would seem to put him in the top 10% of eaters at the Brooklyn location. he claimed his t-shirt, posed for his portrait and joined the other brazen Blazin' consumers (potential YouTube coming here).

with the bones amassing and appetites waning, my tally sheet showed that i had consumed 28 wings (plus some celery, a mushroom and a few Buffalo Chips). pretty good, but a little short. another order was going to be necessary and i was feeling good enough to contemplate taking the Challenge. caution won out, however, and i just ordered another 12 in Hot. this proved to be a prescient move after my stomach began to realize the amount of food that had been put into it, not to mention the 2 large beers. by the time they showed up (after the 3rd beer had arrived), i was looking forward to putting down 4 of them in short order and calling it quits. which is exactly what i did, passing the leftovers down the table where they were quickly demolished. but i met my goal. here's how it broke down:

the tally sheet - surprisingly stain free

i always appreciate a bar that has large sized beers. in this case you had the option of a 22oz. draft, though i do have to deduct points for the lack of pitchers - really you're a sports bar in the mall, how can you not have pitchers? a few people decided to go the fancy drink route, including Drummland who was putting back Mai Tais, Long Island Iced Teas, and i don't know what else. even so, he was still going strong several hours later. in the end, the tab seemed pretty reasonable given the size of the group and the quantities consumed.

Drumm doubles down on the Mai Tais

so could i do better than 32 and hold my own in some sort of competition? yes and maybe. without the beer, celery, et. al. and just focused on wings i don't think 50 would be out of the question. i'm not so sure how i would do if speed were necessary, but i think next time i'll give the Challenge and go and see how i do. i don' t know if i need such a large audience for that, though.

many thanks to all those who came, to the wife for putting this together, and also for baking the awesome lemon pound cake for dessert.

Posted by Jamie at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

sitting here watching Duke-Clemson, with the NCAA tournament a scant 3 weeks away (and with a full month or so before baseball really starts to matter), it seems like a good idea to start talking some college hoops.

over the past 3 months, i've been lucky enough to participate in an poll conducted Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post, the author of the D.C. Sports Bog, to rank the top 11 teams in MD/DC/VA. and by lucky, i mean "Dan knows me and asked for volunteers for the poll with little regard to actual qualifications other than being willing to fill out a ballot every week and toss off some one liners." little did i know that some of my one liners would actually end up in the print edition of the Post on Tuesdays (the poll posts online on Mondays). you can find the most recent poll here and you can read a host of comments from poll voters here (including a pretty awful but amusing comment by me about a week before Barbaro died).

point being, i've been paying a lot of attention to college basketball this season and though there are probably 10,000 other blogs breaking things down, i'm going to do some analysis of my own of each conference that has a chance to get mutliple teams into the field of 65. first a couple of links:

Bubblewatch at ESPN.com
Ken Pomeroy's Rankings (which go way beyond RPI)

Atlantic Coast Conference
Even in this era of mid-major hoopla, the ACC is always a threat to send 8 teams to the NCAA tournament and this year is no different. Pomeroy, for instance, has 9 ACC teams in his top 48. But conference records are a zero sum game and the selection committee has always been loathe to let teams with sub-.500 conference records into the tourney. This is especially bad news for Clemson, who has now lost at home to Duke tonight, making them 5-8 in the ACC and just 2-8 in their last 10 games after starting 17-0. And they're not the only streaky team here. Virginia, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Duke, Georgia Tech and Florida St. have all had bad sreaks at various times.

No Shot in Hell: Miami (Fl.), N.C. State, Wake Forest
Dying On the Vine: Clemson, Florida St., Boston College
As mentioned above, the Tigers are fading faster than a newspaper left out in the sun. Losers of 5 in a row since a win at Duke during the Blue Devils flashback to 1995, Florida St. will have to use their win over Florida to comfort them during the NIT. B.C. was in first place in the conference at 9-2, but have lost three in a row and 5 out of 9 in conference, and their non-conference schedule wasn't exactly formidable (hello Sacred Heart, Yale, Hartford, Fairfield, and a loss to Vermont). They looked positively putrid last night against Virginia Tech.
The Creamy Middles: Virginia Tech, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia Tech
Va. Tech has spent the season alternating between huge wins over Duke, UNC and Virginia with losses to the likes of N.C. State (twice), Marshall and Western Michigan. Virginia had a terrible trip to Puerto Rico in December, losing to Appalachain St (not a bad team, as it turns out), Utah, and barely holding off Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. After a win over Gonzaga, they lost 3 in a row to Stanford, UNC and BC, then won 7 in a row and have since been demolished by Va. Tech and lost to Miami in the past 2 weeks. Maryland was swept by Virginia and sitting at 3-6 in the ACC before reeling off 4 in a row and putting themselves in much better position since they only have 1 blemish loss to Miami. Georgia Tech is another streaky team with a sub .500 conference record but several good non-conference wins (Memphis, Purdue, Georgia). They need to finish strong.
Shoe-ins: North Carolina, Duke
UNC has been in the top 5 all season and is a contender for a 1 seed. Duke got written off during their 4-game losing streak, but they're Satan's spawn and every pundit's wet dream. OK, and they have plenty of good wins over solid opponents.
TSOA's Picks: This is somewhat obvious based on the categories, but i'll take UNC, Duke, Va. Tech, Virginia, Maryland and the winner of the BC/Ga. Tech game on March 4th (I'm picking the Yellow Jackets).

Up next: Atlantic 10, Big East, Big South

Posted by Jamie at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

a couple weeks ago, in an entry about the names of college basketball recruits, i was introduced to the Name of the Year site, and it's pretty fantastic. first of all it was started by a couple of guys in college, probably while drunk or otherwise altered. then they had the vision to keep it going, more or less, every year since, to the point where there are now about 20 Names of the Year that have been handed out.

we've all come across funny and/or ridiculous names, whether through sports, news, or anecdote. i remember Listmaker talking about some of the students in his mom's classes in her suburban Maryland school who had names like Fashion Dynasty, and a friend of South Asian descent who talked about family friends named Dikshit and who worked at a children's hospital in inner city Philly who came across kids named Scharles and such (i don't know why the extra S makes it so amusing, but it does). that said, the Names of the Year really are something special: Doby Crotchtangle, Excellent Raymond, Honka Monka, Jerome Fruithandler. i mean, wow. a few of the names have turned out to be fake, but for the most part, they're for real. there's even a "Hall of Name" and you can check out the full ballot for 2006 or make a submission for the 2007 ballot (coming in March). the whole thing reminds me of that Nicolas Cage skit on SNL where his character is named "Asswipe Johnson".

my favorite of all the names on the site is Tanqueray Beavers, the 2005 winner, because of the perfect combination of alcohol and juvenile sexual sniggering. and i couldn't resist Googling the name to make sure that s/he actually existed. as i found out, the past tense is accurate because "Tank" Beavers was tragically gunned down in Huntsville, Alabama back in December. that's kind of a buzzkill when you're simply looking for a laugh, but it makes you wonder how much of an effect a name has on a person. i mean, Tanqueray Beavers was never going to be the CEO of GM or anything, right? then again, there's the story of Winner and Loser Lane made famous in Freakonomics, so who really knows?

Posted by Jamie at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

i've often said that if i were ever to enter a competitive eating event, the only conceivable food that i might be able to throw down in quantity would be chicken wings. i've probably never eaten more than 20 or 25 at once, but under the right circumstances, i could see plowing through 50 no problem. that still wouldn't get me anywhere near the record of 173 (in 30 minutes), but it also doesn't make me sick to my stomach just thinking about it they way, say, 1.5 gallons of chili, 45 conch fritters or 4 32-ounce bowls of mayonnaise does.

i bring this up because we're headed to Buffalo Wild Wings next weekend for my birthday, where they advertise that their wings are "sauce-spun". frankly that doesn't sound like my ideal mode of preparation (they're also touting a new menu and claim that "you can’t live on wings alone," which seems like soft peddling of their signature product), but they have a good reputation and i've somehow missed out on going during trips to Ohio where they are concentrated, so i'm going to give it a go. i'll start with 2 dozen and see where it goes from there. i should probably stick to the Lite beer.

quick competitive eating note: Sonya Thomas was recently deposed as the oyster-eating queen by some guy who managed to put away 53.5 dozen oysters in about 35 minutes. she does still own the "short form" record by downing 46 dozen (that's 552) in just 10 minutes, which can't possibly be human. i remember being at the Acme Oyster House in New Orleans several years ago, and staring astonished at the wall of fame where the leaders had eaten 30-odd dozen. but what progress we've made as a species since then - i can't believe no one has died during one of these contests (i suppose you could count that woman who died of water intoxication, but that seems different).

looking over the IFOCE record page is astonishing, not just for the sheer volume of food consumed, but also for the variety of categories: tiramisu, waffles, matzo balls, grapes, deep-fried okra, cow brains, something called "Horseshoe sandwiches". it almost makes you never want to eat again.

Posted by Jamie at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

back when t.s.o.a. was alive, i had an entry in which, challenged by the wife, i attempted to create a fake Metropolitan Diary entry that might have a chance to get published. i never submitted it, but apparently a similar idea was hatched on a radio show on WFMU last month. and then, as reported on WFMU's Beware of the Blog, a listener took the idea, ran with it and then actually got a fake anecdote published in today's paper. (note: it has since been pulled after the story got mentioned on Gawker and possibly elsewhere). while it's always fun to see the paper of record get the wool pulled over its eyes, a part of me feels kinda ripped off. of course, that just means i should have sent in my original bit at the time. it makes you wonder how many of all the other bits they publish are actually made up. can that many pretentiously witty stories really take place every year? probably. at least we have Overheard In New York to balance things out.

Posted by Jamie at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

it's been almost a year since this space was updated with any regularity. that may be about to change. the psychic need for an outlet will face off against the need for unstructured free time, which always seems to be in short supply. not that anyone would call this venue structured, but it does required directed effort since i'm mostly incapable of just vomiting stuff up here. i suppose what i'm getting at is that there may be a lot of sporadicity going on here. having been away for a year, it's going to be a bit slow going as i try to play with the design, add links and more or less give things the "lived in" look that characterizes any place worth spending time in.

it feels good to be back.

Posted by Jamie at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)