NCAA Tournament Update. Georgetown Hoyas in the Round of 32…
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In Utah, this is Coach K. Larry Krystkowiak.
In Utah, the Ute tribe officially supports the use of the tribe name by the U.
In 2005, the first picks in both the NFL and NBA drafts were Utah Utes. No other school has ever had this distinction in a given year.
…In Hamlet, Act V, Laertes says that killing Hamlet “practically runs against his conscience,” because his nemesis has such magnanimity and noblesse. I might say the same about the Utah Utes: the state has such soul-elevating grandeur, I hate to beat their team.
Anyone planning on visiting New York might enjoy reading the little virtual walking tour a friend of mine conducted over the course of a couple months, a few winters ago… [Click, and keep clicking “Newer,” if you want to read.]
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Fox News’ Eric BollingSt. John’s coach Steve Lavin
I don’t know about you, but the physical similarity between these two men has left me in something of a daze.
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…Doesn’t look like the Georgetown Hoyas will wind up with an invitation to the NCAA tournament this year. Not that we care about the NCAA tournament. We do not.
In fact, this year we are conducting an official Cosmos + Sunboycott of the NCAA tournament. No brackets, no frenzied channel surfing, no Jay Bilas, no mid-major theorizing–no madness whatsoever.
We will conduct ourselves like the kind of college basketball fans we were raised to be: Riveted during the regular season. Intensely interested in the Big East tournament and moderately interested in the ACC tournament.
Once anyone starts talking about a team “making its case,” we will vacate the premises. Anything having to do with the Big Ten or the PAC Ten, we will summarily ignore. The “American Athletic Conference?” Never heard of it.
College-basketball thinking must resemble environmental thinking: Think regionally, act locally.
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…While we find ourselves on the subject of my perfectly arbitrary opinions, I would like to say that I will always be proud of Juno for choosing life over abortion, even if the prospective adoptive parents turned out to be a lot less “edgier” than she might have wished.
Her latest news has me bummed, because it complicates a man of cloth’s unabashedly recommending Juno to anyone who will listen to me. Can’t tell you how many times I have recommended the movie. Or how many times I have watched it. And I always cry.
But can I say this? In 1990 (when Sara Bareilles was ten years old), “coming out” involved some edginess and perhaps required some courage. I have some particularly vivid college-age memories involving conversations of this kind.
In 2014, however, ‘coming out’ has become a) lame, b) uninspiring as hell, c) totally uncool, and d) altogether annoying.
I wish no one ill, of course. But, my dear people with same-sex attraction: Get over yourselves! You have become the lamestream establishment that you supposedly buck. The only hip thing to be these days is chaste. The brave people these days come out as CHASTE.
It turns out that the world-famous Martinsville Chair is too big even for me. (But I appreciate the gesture.)
…Will I root against the Hoyas tomorrow night, even though they face-off against the school which sits directly across the street from the cathedra of Bishop Francis Xavier DiLorenzo?
No comment.
…Has someone ever rubbed you the wrong way?
Did you find yourself casting about for a fitting imprecation? At a loss for words?
I think I may have discovered the most eloquent string of insults ever spewed.
In William Shakespeare’s Richard III, the deposed queen Margaret excoriates the evil Duke who murdered her son with these words:
…stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.
If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace!
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be whilst some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast seal’d in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy mother’s heavy womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins!
Thou rag of honour! (Act I, scene 3)
N.B. Just providing this as a public service. Use with discretion.
Not convinced that this is the most blistering string of insults the language has ever produced? Please submit other nominations.
–Seth Greenberg, coah of Virginia Tech. No one is surprised that the Georgetown Hoyas are nowhere to be found in the NCAA brackets.
It is interesting to note that the Hoyas actually beat three of the top twelve seeds in the NCAA tournament (UConn, Memphis, and Syracuse).
On the other hand, three Big East teams that handily defeated Georgetown were not even invited to the N.I.T. (St. John’s, Seton Hall, Cincinnati).
If I were a St. John’s fan, I would be incensed that the Hoyas are in the N.I.T. and the Red Storm are not. After all, St. John’s beat Georgetown twice in eight days, and that was six days ago.
I searched St. John’s fan-blogs to find the justifiable rage. But the ragtag lot of Red Storm fans are resigned to their fate. Their team is going to the College Basketball Invitational.
At the N.I.T., the following could happen, and it would make life livable again:
The Hoyas beat Baylor, then Virginia Teach, then another team, then Davidson, then Notre Dame!
This dream scenario involves delightful re-matches.* It is also highly improbable.
(* Notre Dame beat us on New Year’s Eve. Davidson knocked us out of the NCAA tournament last Easter. Also, a Georgetown-Virginia Tech game would be great.)
In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt has an excellent short speech. Benvolio protests that he has drawn his sword only to keep the peace, and the truculent Prince of Cats replies:
What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. 1.1.67-68
Well, let me say that I hate the phrase “March Madness.”
The phrase is a crass neologism. It is imprecise. It is inaccurate.
I hate the phrase, like I hate hell, all euphemisms, and Duke.
Two years ago, Georgetown played until the day before Palm Sunday. They made it to the Final Four in the NCAA tournament, then lost to Ohio State on March 31.
Last year, the Hoyas played until Easter Sunday, when they suffered a bitter loss to Davidson in the second round on March 23.
This year, the Hoyas couldn’t even manage to play through two weeks of Lent.
Perhaps John Thompson III will write a book someday about the 2008-2009 season (or at least a nice long blog post). The defenestration of this year’s team is one of the inexplicable mysteries of sporting history. Youth and inexperience does not explain it. Some dark force has been at work.
College-basketball thinking must resemble environmental thinking: Think regionally, act locally.
will be back.
…good, people are crazy.
…Has someone ever rubbed you the wrong way?
Father Mark White Blog 