ESPN has announced the matchups for the 13 televised “BracketBusters” games that will take place on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 17 and 18. Of particular interest, to me anyway, are Bucknell at Northern Iowa (two teams I’ve picked to win as #14 seeds in recent pools — one successfully) and Buffalo at Iona (Go Bulls!).

The schedule for those games will be announced next Tuesday, according to this article, which gives a good overview of the whole BracketBusters selection process. Also, 37 non-televised BracketBusters matchups will be announced tomorrow.

Dude, if I lived anywhere near Bloomington, Illinois, I would so be liveblogging this.

P.S. As you may notice if you follow the above link, Wonkette has a new look and new, uh, wonks (one of whom is David Lat, a.k.a. “Article III Groupie” of the resurrected Underneath Their Robes). But fear not — the lovely Ana Marie Cox, now the ex-Wonkette, will be back tomorrow night, liveblogging the State of the Union.

Myself, I hope to be liveboozing the State of the Union. Political drinking games are the best! (Hopefully Bush won’t say “North Korea” too many times…) But more on that later, if/when I find a good SOTU drinking game and a suitable location for a SOTU viewing/drinking party.

Rich Gallagher, my Weather Channel contact guy, sends along this very funny parody of TWC’s commercials for “It Could Happen Tomorrow.”

P.S. Speaking of very funny parodies… while looking through old computer files over the weekend in Connecticut, I came across my video clip of Billy Crystal’s awesome Oscar intro from 2004. The highlight, of course, is the part that involves Michael Moore and an oliphaunt from Return of the King:

source file

That never stops being freakin’ hilarious, no matter how many times I watch it.

In a blatant attempt to convince me to root for Pittsburgh in Sunday’s Super Bowl despite how much I like saying the name “Lofa Tatupu,” a bunch of Steelers players arrived today in Detroit wearing green throwback Notre Dame jerseys in honor of Jerome Bettis, the team’s superstar running back (and former Fighting Irish player) who will probably retire after this season.

The Bus and Big Ben.

I wonder if Troy Polamalu wore one? Heh.

Bettis is the runaway media star of the pregame hype, not only because the first-ever Super Bowl of his Hall of Fame-worthy career is most likely his last-ever NFL game — and it’s in his hometown, to boot — but also because he almost fumbled away Pittsburgh’s season against the Colts, a literally heart-stopping mistake that might have delayed his retirement if quarterback Ben Roethlisberger hadn’t made a season-saving tackle. Anyway, getting Bettis to Detroit for the Super Bowl has been something of an inspiration for the Steelers; hence the tribute. But, um, guys? Invoking the magic of the green jerseys might not be the best idea. I mean, it hasn’t worked too well for Notre Dame lately… ;)

In other Super Bowl-related news, Texas A&M is upset over the Seahawks’ use of the term “12th Man,” which A&M apparently has the exclusive legal right to use, notwithstanding that, uh, everybody uses that term.

Personally, I’m just annoyed that the Seahawks beat the Panthers and thus deprived me of the opportunity to make endless jokes about lesbian cheerleaders at the Super Bowl halftime show. :)

The Kerry/Kennedy filibuster of Judge Alito has been defeated, 72-25. Here is the roll call. (Hat tip: Confirm Them.)

Votes of note: Bayh (D-IN), Obama (D-IL), Durbin (D-IL), Clinton (D-NY), Schumer (D-NY) and Dodd (D-CT) voted for the filibuster (or rather, voted “Nay” on cloture, which ends debate). Dodd’s little senatorial brother, Connecticut junior senator and my personal political hero Joe Lieberman (D-CT), voted against the filibuster (or “Yea” on cloture) despite his stated intent to vote against Alito on the merits (a perfectly sensible position, I hasten to add). Both of California’s Democratic senators, Boxer and Feinstein, voted for the filibuster, but the Washington senators, also both Democrats, split: Cantwell voted for cloture, Murray voted against it. Surprisingly, Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) joined the filibusterers and voted against cloture; I thought he opposed a filibuster. All in all, 19 Democrats supported cloture; 25 supported the filibuster. One, Harkin of Iowa, didn’t vote. The Republicans were unanimous for cloture, of course, except the two who didn’t vote.

My not-so-excellent adventure is over; I’m back in South Bend, finally. :)

A brief summary of yesterday’s basketball news… North Carolina beat Duke in a women’s hoops showdown between the last two undefeated teams in Division I basketball, men’s or women’s. It was effectively, but not officially, a 1-vs-2 game; the #2 Blue Devils, who clobbered #1 Tennessee last Monday night, never had a chance to rise to #1 because the polls come out on Monday. North Carolina was technically #3 coming into the game, but was really #2 and will now presumably rise to #1 later today, followed by #2 Duke and perhaps #3 LSU and #4 UConn, considering those teams now have better records than Tennessee, which followed up its loss to Duke with a loss to Kentucky, dropping two in a row for the first time in nine years.

Also, our resident Trojan Husky, David, has ample reason to hate Stanford today, and I’m not just referring to the obnoxious band and the ugly tree. The Cardinal beat USC in women’s basketball yesterday and beat Washington in men’s basketball. The latter contest went to overtime after a Stanford player was fouled shooting a three-pointer with 0.2 left in regulation, and hit all three free throws to tie the game.

With a 16-4 overall record and quality wins over Gonzaga and at UCLA set against a 5-4 conference record, two of those losses being at home and all four coming against unranked teams (Arizona, Wazzu, Cal and Stanford; average RPI rating: #78), not to mention a decidedly weak non-conference schedule outside of the Zags, Washington is something of an enigma. The Huskies were #10 in the last AP poll and #9 in the coaches poll, but that was before getting swept in the Bay Area. They’ll drop substantially in the polls later today, and the Zags-Huskies argument is officially over, notwithstanding the small matter of that game in Seattle last month. :) Moreover, while the Huskies probably consider themselves an NCAA lock, they need to avoid further bad losses; they’re just #56 in the RPI. And we all know computer rankings are better than those biased human polls, right David? :) (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Okay, I have to go to work now. Adios!

Professor Gurule is quoted on the front page of USA Today this morning, in the top story about cutting off terrorist funding.