NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

Man, a ton of energy in this SDSU/UCONN game. Very fun to watch.

 

My God, Leslie Visser looks like Tales From the Crypt.

 

Yes, I'm sure basketball purists and AAU haters are going to tell us all that the bullshit, 52-50, thug-fest which will take place in about an hour between butler and wisconsin "is good fundamental basketball" but I'd much rather watch two teams whose primary objective is to score.

 

Kemba Walker with a nice Cristiano Ronaldo flop there.

 

The other four BYU players suck.

 

Maybe, but without them shooting well early, BYU would be down by about 30 right now.

 

Jimmer from about 35!

 

My god, that long, long-range 3 that Jimmer just took (or, at least, was just shown on highlights in the SDSU game) was insane.

 

Jimmer appears to be heating up.

And so is Gus.

 

Not that this has anything to do with the game, but ... I'm experiencing a strange phenomenon with my surround sound. When I turn to the BYU-UF game, I get a lone fan applauding in the back left speaker. The other game is fine. Weird.

 

Butler doesn't play like that.

 

As much as I'd like to see it happen, Mississippi will probably never get rid of the rebel battle flag in its state flag. The only people who are really passionate about the issue are on the pro-flag side, and they control the conversation with their "heritage not hate," crap.

Frankly, the only people clamoring for a new flag are outsiders. Even the black community in the state is fairly ambivalent about it, figuring (correctly) that there are more important issues in this state to get worked up over, like the highest illiteracy rate in the country, just to name one.

We took a stab at it 10 years ago, and it got shot down by about a 2/3s margin of votes cast, and nothing much has changed since then. The Legislature won't change it, because they see that 2/3s margin and figure doing anything to change the flag on their own would be political suicide (which it would be, unfortunately).

And, as far as the NCAA ban goes, it is about as toothless as any sanction possible. Mississippi doesn't have an arena that comes close to being adequate for sub-regional play, and sports fans in the state don't really care all that much about basketball anyway. As long as we get baseball regionals, we're happy with the status quo.

Wish it was different, but that's the way it rolls here in deep Dixie. Now, back to basketball.