Hooray for the Women of Troy!

Freshman Brynn Cameron posted her first career double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds as every USC starter scored in double figures in a nail-biting 80-77 win against crosstown rival UCLA in front of a season-high 5,222 fans at the Sports Arena on Saturday (Feb. 26).

USC improved to 18-9 overall and 12-6 in the Pac-10 to finish in a three-way tie for second with Oregon and Arizona State, Troy’s best Pac-10 finish since winning the league title in 1994. It’s also USC’s most wins since going 20-9 in 1997, also the last year the Women of Troy went to the NCAA Tournament.

Troy’s win over UCLA, however, should go a long way into persuading the NCAA Tournament selection committee to include the Trojans regardless of what happens at the 2005 Pac-10 Tournament.

Tomorrow, the Fighting Irish host the UCLA men. I’ll be there. Here’s hoping for a bad Bruin weekend all around! :)

Yoco asks: “Could the West Coast Conference receive more [NCAA Tournament] invitations than the Pac 10?” It could happen!

It’s enough to make you wonder how the hell the Pac-10 is #2 in the conference RPI.

I’ve decided to drop the $5.00 donation for the BrendanLoy.com Oscar Pool and run it purely as a free contest, since nobody seemed interested in playing for money. So, we’ll play for pride — and publicity on this blog! :)

The Oscars are less than 36 hours away, so join now!!!

NOTE: Be sure to put your real name, or a readily identifiable nickname (e.g., “Boi From Troy,” “alphadog,” etc.), at the bottom of the entry form, so I’ll know who you are.

Speaking of which, if you’re the person who entered under the nickname “Big Baby Jesus,” please comment or email me, because at the moment, I have no idea who that is!

P.S. The same goes for whoever entered under the nickname “the gipper.” Identify yourself please! I want to know who’s in my contest — at least some semblance of identifying information — or I won’t include you in the standings.

Kyle of The Mid-Majority has a goal:

I’d rather see strong teams from the nation’s Mid-Majority crack the bracket two rounds, instead of an extra bunch of [weaker mid-major teams getting in, leading to] first-round blowouts that would set off more blabbery that small-college basketball is second-rate.

And so I’d like to quantify that right now. My goal, our goal, is four mid-major teams in the Sweet Sixteen. ([Gonzaga] doesn’t count.) If we work together, we can make this happen. Adopt a strong mid-major, and cheer them on to victory. Jump on the bandwagon, buy a t-shirt, e-mail the athletic department and tell them what a great job they’re doing. If you have a first/second round ticket strip, go and scream your lungs out. Every fan counts.

Southern Illinois. Nevada. Pacific. Vermont.

Let’s do this.

Count me in! Go Salukis! Go Wolfpack! Go Tigers! Go Catamounts!

And GO ALL THE WAY, ZAGS!!! Gonzaga #1, national champs!!! :)

P.S. I’m too poor to buy anything right now, but for what it’s worth, I’m adopting Vermont. They have the coolest nickname (the “Catamounts”), and they’re from New England… and Taylor Coppenrath ROCKS! They can totally knock off OU and MSU (or whomever).

Whatever you think about the wisdom of the policy — I tend to think it’s a good thing — the Bush Administration certainly does appear, with its statements and actions toward Russia and now Egypt, to be getting serious about this whole “freedom” thing:

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in an interview that he hoped Egypt “gets the strong message that the United States will not look the other way anymore, that the suppression of democracy is no longer a matter of purely domestic affairs in a country.”

On a related (?) note, there is some good news out of Egypt.

UPDATE: TigerHawk sees a cause-and-effect relationship between the two Egypt stories linked above.

UPDATE 2: Villainous Company says it’s all about Condi’s boots. Heh.

One of these days these boots
Are gonna walk all over you…

P.S. I’m just waiting for the other boot to drop, as it were, with regard to Saudi Arabia, and its “freedom” problems…

The Telegraph: “Mr Powell showed that much of the innuendo and leaks surrounding his volatile relationship with the defence secretary had been well-founded.”

This is relatively outrageous, if you ask me.

I was out walking the dog just now, having been awakened by his middle-of-the-night “I have to pee” whine, when I noticed a single point of light, about as bright as an airplane but without any secondary blinking lights, moving steadily across the sky. I immediately thought to myself, “Is that the International Space Station?” Its speed and appearance were strikingly similar to the way the ISS looked the last time I had seen it, in Phoenix.

When I got back inside, I checked, and lo and behold, it was the ISS! I’m rather impressed with myself for having guessed correctly… and I think it’s cool that I happened to randomly, accidentally see it while walking Robbie. (The previous time I saw the ISS, I knew it was flying over that day, and I made a point of going outside at the right time to watch for it.)

As it happens, that was the most directly overhead ISS pass in South Bend since January 11, and there won’t be a better one until March 23 at 8:06 PM. (Chart here; click the “Prev.” and “Next” buttons to move backward and forward in time.)

Whoa!

All men are created equal… but some are more equal than others, it seems. (Hat tip: Andrew.)

Today’s South Bend Tribune has an analysis of the Notre Dame men’s basketball team’s position in the Big East and its NCAA Tournament hopes.

On Sunday, the Irish begin a season-ending three-game homestand when they play UCLA at 2:00 PM at the Joyce Center. I’ll be there, and at last, my Irishness and my Trojanness will be able to speak with one voice and proclaim: BEAT THE BRUINS!!! :)

Alas, USC lost to the Bruins last night, so I’ll have to hope the Irish can do what the Trojans could not. A Notre Dame win could crush UCLA’s tournament hopes; the Bruins are currently very much on the bubble. (The Trojans have no postseason hopes whatsoever. They probably won’t even qualify for the Pac-10 tournament.)

Notre Dame is also a bubble team, albeit one in somewhat better shape than the Bruins, according to most analyses. I’d say the Irish must beat hapless Rutgers on Wednesday to stay alive for an NCAA berth — but if that’s all they do, it’ll be a tense Selection Sunday. A win over either UCLA this Sunday or Pittsburgh next Saturday would probably virtually assure them of a bid.

The ND women’s basketball team, meanwhile, isn’t sweating out Selection Sunday; for the #10-ranked Irish ladies, the only question is whether they’ll get a #2 or a #3 seed. Their final home game is Saturday at 2:00 PM against West Virginia.

Also on Saturday in women’s basketball, USC plays UCLA at the Sports Arena. Both teams are on the bubble. FIGHT ON, WOMEN OF TROY!!! BEAT THE BRUINS!!!

Today is Becky’s and my fifth anniversary as a couple.

Five years! Wow! That’s half a decade! What a long, strange, wonderful trip it’s been. :)

I don’t have any pictures of us from February 25, 2000, but here’s one from the night before our one-month anniversary — March 24, 2000 (there was a dorm dance that night):

For those who don’t know the story, Becky and I met our freshman year at USC, when we both lived in the same dorm, Trojan Hall. I started attempting to woo her in mid-October or so; we had a brief, abortive attempt at couplehood in December (our famous “four-day relationship”), then tiptoed around the issue for two more months before finally getting together “for real” in February. We were on-and-off for the first couple of years, so much so that people used to tease us about it (though neither of us ever dated anyone else during our “off” periods), but we never stopped celebrating Feb. 25 as our “official” anniversary. Of course, we’ve been 100% “on” ever since I moved to Arizona about a year and a half ago, and now we’re engaged to be married in just over 10 months!

This is, of course, the last year we’ll be celebrating February 25 as our primary “anniversary.” Next year, we’ll start celebrating our wedding anniversary! Woohoo! :)

Happy Anniversary, baby!

Condoleezza Rice: America’s sexiest Secretary of State ever?

The president will speak at the Joyce Center next Friday!

President George W. Bush is expected to promote Social Security reform during a visit to the Joyce Center on the University of Notre Dame campus next Friday.

Although the White House has not released any details of the president’s itinerary and a University of Notre Dame spokesman declined to confirm or deny the stop here, the visit appears to be one in a series of Bush visits to “red” states represented by a U.S. Senate Democrat as part of an effort to woo Democratic support for his proposals.

It will be Dubya’s sixth visit to Michiana.