Keep on Watching
One of the only ways American workers still take time back from their employers in a workplace where more and more is demanded of fewer and fewer employees is to watch the NCAA tournament. So consider slacking today and watching some hoops work to rule.
I am more or less indifferent as to today’s action. But tomorrow, there are two clear games. First, Oregon over St. Louis. I need a reason to hate St. Louis University by tomorrow afternoon. Second, Arizona over Harvard. I was sickened last night to see my Lobos lose to the 1%. Harvard grads start wars. New Mexico grads die in them. I was hoping to take one back. Instead, Henry Kissinger is happy. Bah. So go Arizona! Which is something I really couldn’t have said if Lute “I’m going to kill this Pac-10 TV deal because I’m scared to be around USC at night” Olson was still coaching the Wildcats.
I believe they should be hated because they spell their name “Saint Louis” rather than “St. Louis,” thereby confounding copy editors all over America, and making you wonder if they even are located in St. Louis. Also, without looking it up, I believe their nickname is the Billikins. You could definitely hate Billikins.
SLU was home to the two priests in the real-life event that inspired The Exorcist, so … I guess they helped inspire the Satanic panic trials in the ’80s?
Does this mean their point guard has the advantage of a 360 degree turn of the head?
It gives him great court vision, and that backwards crabwalk really helps protect the ball.
Item:
Wow, you guys are picking on my poor little birth city (still living <100m to the south). And how long has it been since we had a decent team at SLU (pronounced "slew")? Like, forever. I mean, c'mon, can't we win just this once?
I knew a guy in college who spent his freshman year at Saint Louis University. He had a poor experience there, and it made him sad to think about it during his sophomore year.
Is that enough, or do you need, like, a real substantive reason to hate SLU?
How about SLU is better than Oregon? Or maybe the fact that SLU is gonna beat Oregon like a red headed step child?
Seriously, there is no reason to hate SLU, them going thru what they have gone thru this year, coming out on top of the A-10, and not taking any of the hype too seriously, thinking always that they can play better than they did in the last game.
Don’t worry, getting beat by them will not shame you ;-)
It didn’t look to me like Harvard played all that well. New Mexico looked incredibly slow. I’ve seen upsets where the underdog shoots the lights out, or the favorite just can’t make a shot. I’ve seen match-up problems where a talented team with a bad point guard runs into a team that presses well. But I just can’t see how New Mexico could have been a 3 seed with so little athleticism.
Now why did I put that there?
Why not?
When I was a daytime bartender in the 90′s, the first Th & F of March Madness were my favorite days of the year.
The bar was packed with folks who’d taken the afternoon off from work – with or without permission.
People were coming and going, screaming, cheering, moaning, ordering drinks and wings – and tipping me! Very generously, may I add.
Oh, good times… Good times…
The last two days have been known as The Exile by my office: none of the regulars can get their barstools.
You gotta get the hell out of the house and back behind a bar where you belong.
Sadly, I’m too handicapped to tend bar anymore, and too poor to go to bar and sit there and drink.
So, I sit at home, and watch, and have a nice vodka or two… or three… or…
ITSH NOONAN TIME!!!
HIC!
CRASH!!!
And if the university is in fact of the saint rather than of the city, we can blame the Crusadin’ Capetian for planting the roots of turmoil in the Middle East.
Louis IX embarked on the Seventh and Eighth Crusades, so he wasn’t planting anything that wasn’t already there.
Cementing, maybe?
Obviously the first six must not have stuck.
How about they employed Schuschnigg from 1948-1967.
Faculty at Saint Louis University
Also too:
And then…
The Great Danes kept it interesting for a while, but fell short. Damn.
Way ahead of you, Loomis. Not only am I watching, I had two beers.
Outstanding!
Two and a half hour lunch and five beers! Unfortunately, I’m self-employed.
Fire yourself, then rehire yourself at half-wages
I would like to buy this comment a beer.
That should cause his stock price to rise
I assumed New Mexico must not be the squeaky clean institution Loomis makes it out to be, and Google proved me correct.
http://chronicle.com/article/In-Professor-Dominatrix/124369/
I’m sorry, this looks like a recruiting tool to me.
Oh yeah, the English Department at UNM is crazy.
It may have settled down in recent years, but oh boy there was always crazy news coming out of there.
“Oh yeah, the English Department at UNM is crazy.”
sorry, this just puts me in mind of a very old SNL skit. i’m trying, desperately, to envision those “wild & crazy guys” in any english department.
Did you read the linked article? The professor was not only engaging in S&M on the side (which, whatever), but she was recruiting her graduate students into it as well–and then discussing it openly in graduate seminars, even though not all of the students in the seminar were in the S&M club.
This was after another incident where a graduate student left her husband for a professor in the department. The husband then killed both of them in bed.
Weren’t you there before you came to our little, teeny Providence Plantations?
Not directly before, but it is where my Ph.D. is from.
yeah, i read it, and your point would be? tempest in the proverbial academic teapot. the only reason this is moderately interesting, is because of the phone sex. aside from that, it’s pretty petty bickering. with respect to the second instance, unfortunate yes, but it hardly involved the entire dept.
now, you want to talk to me about business profs involved in insider-trading, or using their computer students to write code for them, which they then pass off as their own work. or other technical depts. involved in patent right issues, fraudulent medical research, etc., which can potentially harm lots of other people, then we can have a discussion about “wild & crazy”.
OMG that UNM Prof. is worse than Hitler and almost as bad as Ward Churchill !!11!!!
And with Wisconsin’s loss my bracket is already officially busted.
I don’t even like them, why the hell did I have them in the final?
I’d put myself on the high side of 3 hours
Well, basically, fuck you. My cat jumps up every time I randomly shout out “holds sway.”
Harrumph!
As a former Arizona student I can hope they’ll whip Harvard. Today I’m wondering how 13-seed LaSalle, which had to beat Boise State to get in in a play-in game, can lead 4-seed Kansas State by 16 or so at halftime.
The A-10 is a lot better than most people think. LaSalle’s RPI is 40. I watched the La Salle Boise game, and although they didn’t win by much, you could tell 10 minutes in they were going to win.
The Big 12 is overrated.
Still, an overrated 4 should beat an underrated 13, or at least avoid humiliation.
the A-10 has what, 3-4 teams in the tournament? that should give you a clue as to how good a basketball conference it is.
5 teams, who are now 6-0.
yep, just went and checked. not bad, for a mid-major conference.
SLU had the gall to not hire me even though I applied for a job there. Pretty bad. Also, the administration there tried to kill tenure but failed.
I work for a very large and well-known mutual fund and brokerage company. It is privately owned and a little paternal. It is really hard to get fired.
EXCEPT: If they get even the littlest whiff of, say, an NCAA pool or a rotisserie league. Then BOOM! Out the door. If you have an IQ higher than a mushroom, you don’t even mention something like that in an e-mail.
I’m home now. I wouldn’t even have commented on this thread from work.
As of Friday, March 22nd, 2013, 3:00 p.m. PST, there is only one bracket out of about 8,000,000 in ESPN’s Tourney Challenge that got all of the first 22 games right.
Kind of amazing.
And now, at 4:01 p.m., after Illinois won its first round game, there are no brackets that correctly predicted all of the games so far.
Hey Erik, I think you mean Yale:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_education#Undergraduate
Plus, also, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Hall_%28Harvard_University%29
Calling Louisville v Florida for the championship.