“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” – Isoroku Yamamoto

It was all chalk in tonight’s first half of the Elite Eight as all four favorites came away victorious, though it wasn’t easy in the West.

From The Sports Desk

• Maybe he misspoke.  West Virginia’s Daxter Miles boldly proclaimed that after tonight’s game Kentucky would be 36-1.  Perhaps he was actually referring to what he thought the first half score would be.  I understand confidence and all of that, but this game was six different kinds of agony.  At one point Kentucky had TRIPLED West Virginia’s score, 33-11.  3 x WVU = UK is not a formula for an upset.  So maybe Daxter would have been better off to let the nice giant sleep.  And just to demonstrate how truly lopsided this victory was, in the traditional end-of-blowout-game line change, Coach Calipari put in Donnie Osmond, Danny Partridge, and Bobby Brady, just to make the point.
• No one should be Shocked by this one.  Listen, name any other team in the history of the NCAA who could beat Duke twice, North Carolina twice, win the ACC, and STILL be on upset alert against a lower seeded but admittedly talented mid-major. Notre Dame has to be the Rodney Dangerfield of college basketball, and perhaps that’s deserved, but this squad is a real contender.  They were done a disservice by the committee by being stuck in the same bracket with Kentucky, as they would be a legitimate Final Four contender in any other region. Some folks give them a chance against The Wildcats, and I suppose there is always a chance, but there will have to be an awful lot of the luck of the Irish for them to win on Saturday.
• Badgered but unbeaten – In a game that was rather un-Wisconsin like, Wisconsin survived a relatively high scoring affair in which they committed an uncharacteristic 18 fouls and 5 turnovers and shot just 46% from the floor.  Those are good numbers for other teams, but not for the Badgers.  North Carolina played terrific defense and led most of the way until they got stuck on 60, at which point Wisconsin finally started hitting some shots, and none too soon.  The Badgers won in a game much closer than the final score suggests.
• The OTHER Wildcats – In perhaps the most surprising and entertaining game of the evening, Xavier gave Arizona all they could handle with their befuddling 1-3-1 match up zone.  Led by beefy center Matt Stainbrook, whom clever minion Brad Schafer dubbed “The Wookie,” Xavier led for three quarters of this game due to strong defense, excellent shooting, and the apparent lethargy and confusion of the Wildcats.  It appeared that maybe Arizona was going to let the Wookie win, but thanks to the all-but-extinct midrange jumper, which honestly saved the game for Arizona, and three quick fouls on the Wookie, Arizona managed to pull away in the final four minutes.

From The Irritation File

• Three words I never want to hear again on a sports broadcast at any level: Indisputable Video Evidence.  It’s a game, not a trial by jury.  It’s in the NFL, the NBA, college football, college basketball, you name it.  We have all of these stoppages of play where the network shows us the super slow motion replay from the same 3 angles 20 times, and the announcers do their best to provide the dramatic build up to the big announcement from the deliberating officials, all the while punctuating every sentence with the stern reminder that there must be “Indisputable Video Evidence” to overturn the call, as if that somehow should convince us that it really does take multiple officials five minutes to come to the obvious conclusion the rest of us arrived at in about 20 seconds.  And as if that weren’t bad enough, in college basketball such theatrics are only allowed in the final two minutes, which with the ridiculously late tip time of 10:24 EDT, happens at around 12:35 AM.
• This year’s Bad Idea award has to go to the Worst Seat In The House Cam, which is what I have dubbed the camera angle from the opposite end of the court behind the basket.  There’s a reason those tickets are cheap.  I can understand a brief cut to that camera for variety or using it on an instant reply, but more than once we’ve been treated to an entire offensive possession from that camera angle.  And yes, it is just as difficult to determine what happened on television as it is in person from that vantage point.
• What Did They Say?  A few months ago I succumbed to the reality of life in my 40s by getting glasses so that I can actually see what I am typing right now.  Apparently, I should now go get fitted for hearing aids, because I just don’t seem to be hearing things right.  Exhibit A: North Carolina has a player named Tokoto, which I believe is properly pronounced TOE-keh-toe.  However, I promise that every other time one of the announcers said it, it sounded like TOE-keh-no.  Now that’s not exactly a conventional name, and so I’m really not trying to nit-pick, but which is it?  Maybe they were actually saying Poconos, which I hear are really nice this time of year.  On the other hand, I am certain that I heard Reggie Miller say EKS-zay-vee-er at least once.  That drives me batty.  But at least the IUPUI Jaguars didn’t make the field this year.  If they had, someone would have undoubtedly called them the JAG-WIRES at least once, sending me into an Incredible Hulk moment where things get smashed.  Repeat after me, minions.  There is no “I” in Jaguar.

From the Social Network

And speaking of misheard mispronunciations, I tweaked the great Clark Kellogg a little bit on Twitter after being certain he mispronounced Wichita State star Fred VanVleet’s surname as VanFleet.  I heard it more than once.  Surprisingly, this got his attention, as he actually responded!

This got my brother, Josh Marshall’s attention.  Apparently overjoyed at my 15 seconds of Twitter fame, he texted me:

Hey, if the man says he said VanVleet, then that’s what he said, but it sure sounded like VanFleet to me. Maybe this is like that whole what-color-is-this-dress thing that drove everyone bonkers.

A Few Awards

I saw some amusing alias updates this week that are noteworthy.

• The Most Disturbing Pun award goes to Shelby “Ann Thrax” Risner.  Remind me never to get on YOUR bad side.
• The Is That Your Final Answer award goes to Robert “This time I really mean it!” Tipton, no doubt referring to the re-picks.
• The It’s Not Actually Such a Big Mystery award goes to Dylan “Always ends up ranked 500 or below” Scheumann.  It’s all in the picks, man.
• The Or Else! award goes to Peyton “Notre Dame better win” Renier.  This leaves me wondering what the consequences are if they don’t win.

And now for a couple of standings-related awards.

• The Asleep At The Wheel award goes to former second place minion Jeff “JTTDMD” Taylor who did not take advantage of the re-picks and thus still had VCU in the Elite Eight in the spot now occupied by Arizona.  This along with his pick of West Virginia over Kentucky caused him to drop six spots.
• The What’s Wrong With This Picture award goes to 15th place minion and Kentucky fan Brandon Lane, who has lost only 9 games so far, won all four games tonight, has the best winning percentage in the contest, and yet isn’t even in the top 10.
• The How Do You Like It Now? award goes to Lowell “I Don’t Like Being Tied for 666th” Holchhalter who is no longer tied for 666th but instead is the sole possessor of 726th.  Not an improvement, but at least his ranking is no longer the number of the beast.  That honor goes to…
• Kit “Let’s Go Baby” Meyer, who receives the Really, It’s Just A Number award.
• The Billboard Hot 100 award goes to Adam Detamore, currently in 100th place.  Adam will receive a collection of Billboard’s truly awful top “hits” that he will never listen to.
• The Seventh Day award goes to 7th place minion David “mrmm” Moritz.  David gets a day of rest.
• Finally, the The Rest of Us Should Be So Clueless award goes to continued contest front-runner Sue “no clue” Chmura who continues in first place with a solid 105 score.  Can anyone catch Sue?  We’ll find out tomorrow as the games with the better upset potential in the East region are played.  There’s a good chance for some minions to get a significant boost from those games.

That’s all for tonight, minions.  Check back after Friday’s games for the Elite Eight Extravaganza.

The Wizard of Whiteland

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