Irish Trojan in Tennessee

And here I thought Bear Stearns was a scrappy mid-major team from the WAC

By Brendan Loy

I haven't blogged anything about this J.P. Morgan-Bear Stearns business, partly because of March Madness and partly because I don't really understand it very well. But even to a economics & finance ignoramus like myself, it seems like an obviously big deal. This paragraph from the linked WSJ article struck me as particularly ominous:

The sale of Bear Stearns and Sunday night's move by the Fed to offer loans to other securities dealers mark the latest historic turns in what has become the most pervasive financial crisis in a generation. The issue is no longer whether it will yield a recession -- that seems almost certain -- but whether the concerted efforts of Wall Street and Washington can head off a recession much deeper and more prolonged than the past two, relatively mild ones.

Yippee!! [/sarcasm]

Women's pool delayed online!

By Brendan Loy

The women's NCAA Tournament bracket is out. Due to technical issues, however, I will be unable to get the pool entry form online until sometime tomorrow (Tuesday), probably in the evening.

UPDATE: Nevermind. The women's pool is now online!

Meanwhile, don't forget that the deadline to enter my NIT Pool is 6:00 PM EDT tomorrow (Tuesday).

Can you beat John McCain's bracket?

By Brendan Loy

John McCain is running his own NCAA pool. You can "Win Great McCain 2008 Prizes!" Heh. (Hat tip: Eric Soskin.)

I'm guessing McCain will pick Arizona to upset West Virginia and Duke. Just a hunch.

SoCal VoCals win West Region title!

By Brendan Loy

For the first time ever, the USC SoCal VoCals are going to collegiate a capella's version of the Final Four: the ICCA International Finals in New York City!

Over the weekend, the VoCals won the ICCA semifinal -- basically the Western regional championship -- at Marin Center for the Performing Arts in San Rafael, California, beating out the University of Oregon Divisi, the UCLA ScatterTones (ha ha! take that, Mike Tran!), defending national champion BYU Noteworthy, BYU Vocal Point, the Cal-Berkeley Golden Overtones, Mt. San Antonio College Fermata Nowhere, and These Guys from Fullerton and Citrus colleges. (Full results here; scroll down to "ICCA West Region.")

The VoCals' previous best finish at the ICCA semis was second place in 2001, and they've finished third four times: in 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2006. Long-time readers might recall that I trailed the VoCals for a photojournalism project -- producing, among others, this photo -- during their 2002 third-place ICCA appearance, and later wrote about it in a Daily Trojan opinion article analogizing the competition to March Madness, with which it always roughly coincides.

Anyway, on April 19, this year's crop of SoCal VoCals will compete for the international championship of collegiate a capella (that's what ICCA stands for, natch) against the Northwestern University Purple Haze (Midwest Region champs), Oxford University Out of the Blue (Western Europe champs), and as-yet undetermined champions from the South, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Fight on, SoCal VoCals!! Beat those other schools!! Wooo!!

Arrrrrgh.

By Brendan Loy

The good news is, the Notre Dame-George Mason game will be the primary ~9:30 game on the Knoxville CBS affiliate Thursday night. Sweet!

The bad news is, contrary to what I guessed last night, USC-Kansas State won't be the primary ~7:00 game. I guess they think Belmont, a Nashville university with 4,700 students, has a large enough following in East Tennessee that it makes sense to prioritize #2 Duke vs. #15 Belmont over the super-frosh showdown of Mayo vs. Beasley. Ugh.

I just hope our Comcast connection can handle MMOD. (Speaking of which, if you want a "VIP pass," you'd better sign up now -- they're 86% full!)

Spring has sprung!

By Brendan Loy

Knoxville's Krutch Park in bloom. ... Meanwhile, I just got a text message from Kristin in South Bend -- where I'm guessing it's decidedly less springlike -- reporting that Notre Dame Law School has been evacuated due to a fire alarm. Hmm.

UPDATE: Our intrepid NDLS correspondent reports: "All ok, incident involved a microwave, a sandwich wrapped in tin foil, & a styrofoam plate." Heh.

Enter my pools!

By Brendan Loy

Just to reiterate, here are the links to enter my free, "moneyless" men's NCAA pool and women's NCAA pool.

The NIT pool deadline has passed. Standings are here. The men's NCAA pool deadline is 12:20pm EDT Thursday. The women's NCAA pool deadline is noon EDT Saturday.

This post will stay on top of the homepage until further notice; new posts will appear below.

Top o' the mornin'!

By Brendan Loy

As a follow-up to my dad's post, Loyette and I would like to wish you & yours a very happy St. Patrick's Day:

Awww. :) Cutest. Leprechaun. Ever.

The other other tournament

By Brendan Loy

The inaugural CBI bracket was released overnight. Please, try to contain your excitement. :)

With Washington in the CBI, Arizona State and Cal in the NIT, and of course, UCLA, Stanford, Wazzu, USC, Oregon and Arizona in the NCAA Tournament, fully nine-tenths of the Pac-10 will be playing in the postseason. (Somehow, 6-24 Oregon State, RPI #269, was snubbed. EAST COAST BIAS!! ;)

P.S. Seriously, how bad is Oregon State? According to the RPI, they played literally the worst non-conference schedule in all of D-1... and they went 6-5 against it. And that's not including their loss to Division II Alaska Fairbanks!!

And in brief tribute to that other madness of March...

By Joe Loy

...a very blessed Saint Patrick's Day to one and All ~ and a reasonably ;> Enjoyable one as well.

:}

Tournament schedule unveiled

By Brendan Loy

The NCAA Tournament first-round schedule for Thursday and Friday is out. And guess what? Just in case Georgia wasn't tired enough from their incredible three-wins-in-30-hours run through the SEC Tournament, their game with Xavier is the first game of the tourney, tipping at 12:20 PM EDT Thursday. LOL!  [CORRECTION: Er, that's the "first game" not counting the play-in game, of course.]

USC-Kansas State is at 7:10 PM Thursday. I imagine it will be the national game, given the Mayo-Beasley matchup, and I'm glad it's not opposite a Tennessee, Vanderbilt or Memphis game, in which case it probably would have been pre-empted here in Knoxville. I'm hoping Belmont won't get special TV coverage for their game against Duke beyond the Nashville market.

Notre Dame-George Mason is at 9:50 PM Thursday (or, more precisely, 30 minutes after the conclusion of the Wazzu-Winthrop game, which tips at 7:20). In terms of which contest will be the national game in that time slot, I think it'll be between ND-GMU and Arizona-West Virginia, but I'd put my money on the latter.

Annoyingly, three of the first-round matchups I'm most interested in watching are all in Friday's first block of games, and all opposite Tennessee-American, which will of course get wall-to-wall coverage here. I'll be at home, as I have Good Friday off, but I'll have to rely on MMOD to watch any of Gonzaga-Davidson, Drake-Western Kentucky or Miami-Saint Mary's. Harumph.