We’ve arrived in Fairview Heights, IL after driving 386 miles in 5 hours and 20 minutes. I’ll let you do the math… unless you’re a member of the Illinois State Police, in which case, please don’t. :) We got a brief glimpse of the Gateway Arch from the highway, and tomorrow, we’ll cross the Mississippi and then take in a full day of Arch Madness at the Savvis Center.

Just for fun, we both made up brackets with our wild guesses predictions for the tourney:

Thus far, she’s 1-for-2 and I’m 0-for-2. Heh. Nothing like an auspicious start.

GO BRADLEY!!! (I’ll be cheering for the Braves quietly, since we’re sitting in the Creighton section — and this isn’t like USC-ND, where I have a legitimate reason to be sitting in the wrong section — but I’ll be cheering for them nonetheless. I gotta; my pride is at stake now. :)

As you might recall, January 21, a.k.a. “Shocker Saturday,” was a remarkable day in college basketball. The nation’s last three undefeated teams — Duke, Florida and Pitt — all lost on that one day, and Wisconsin was stunned at home by a provisional Division I squad called North Dakota State.

But I think you can make a strong case that the last two days, taken together, have been even more remarkable, given the stakes. In all my years watching college basketball, I can’t ever recall such a rapid-fire sequence of huge wins by bubble teams over teams in the absolute upper echelon of the rankings. Duke, Texas and Memphis will all almost certainly be #1 or #2 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, but they’ve all fallen victim in the last 48 hours to stunning upsets at the hands of teams — Florida State, Texas A&M, and UAB, respectively — who were not just on the bubble, but on the wrong side of the bubble, according to most projections. In other words, all three teams absolutely needed the win, and all three got it.

I’ll tell you one thing: the bubble looks a lot less “soft” right now than it did at this time two days ago.

With the Oscars just three days away, it’s time for the 2nd annual BrendanLoy.com Oscar Pool! Make your picks here. It’s free to enter; the winner gets publicity and blog bragging rights. All contestants are encouraged to enter with their “real” names, first and last (or at least one name and one initial, e.g. “B. Loy” or “Brendan L.”) … but if you insist on using a psuedonym of some kind, that’s OK. (The “real name” rules will be a bit stricter for the NCAA Pool, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

Point values and tiebreakers are the same as last year. As regular readers may recall, that contest was won by Jackie Domaingue, a.k.a. Kristy’s boyfriend’s mom.

P.S. On an unrelated note, does anyone have any thoughts on how fast/slow the archived blog posts in the above paragraph load? I’m curious how they seem to y’all.

[This post will remain on top of the homepage all day. -ed.]

One night after Florida State and Texas A&M arguably played their way into the NCAA Tournament — and at the same time that UAB is trying to do the same — Syracuse arguably (or perhaps inarguably?) played its way out tonight. DePaul 108, Syracuse 69. WOW. Are you kidding me? A 39-point loss to DePaul?!? In the final week of the regular season? Jeez. That’s inexcusable. That “popping” sound you hear is the Orange’s bubble bursting. (The accompanying wail comes from Gerry McNamara, whose career at Syracuse began with a national championship and will likely end with an NIT berth. Think he misses Carmelo?)

On the flip side, DePaul (now 5-10 in conference) is going to be a tough out for Notre Dame (also 5-10) on Saturday. The Demons clearly want to go to the Big East tourney. Badly.

UPDATE: UAB did it! They beat #3 Memphis, 80-74. Another huge win for a bubble team. Syracuse notwithstanding, the bubble is looking less and less “soft” by the moment.

With USC’s men’s basketball team playing at Stanford tonight (the Cardinal lead 28-27 at halftime), now seems an appropriate time to link to this story, which provides some additional juicy details about the Funniest Story Ever^TM, the saga of Stanford’s ex-Tree. Excerpt:

Ferns don’t let trees drive drunk.

According to a report from The Associated Press, the student wearing the Stanford University tree, the mascot for the team, was suspended from duty after University of California-Berkeley police observed her drinking from a flask during a Stanford-Cal basketball game this year.

Just when you think you’ve heard everything — a tree goes out and gets drunk.

“She was taking drinks inside the tree,” said Kevin Klintworth, assistant athletic director at Cal. “The officers could see the flask through the costume.”

LOL!!

The article’s punny author cheekily adds, “Authorities said the test showed she had a blood alcohol level of 0.15 percent, nearly twice the legal limit for driving. Officials refused comments on what the legal limit for dressing as a tree is.” Heh.

(Previous posts here and here.)

Meanwhile, the Stanford Daily defends the institution of the Tree and the school’s notorious band.

UPDATE: Bah. USC loses a heartbreaker, 58-56.

Becky and I are presently passing through Bloomington, Illinois, about halfway from South Bend to St. Louis. (We just passed a sign for “Funks Grove.” Heh.) We’re about 90 miles due east of my mom’s hometown of Macomb, IL at the moment. And, according to another sign that we just passed, we’re 152 miles from St. Louis. Woohoo! So, at Becky’s breakneck speed-demon driving pace, we should be there in under two hours… :)

In a related story, the MVC tourney that constitutes the whole point of this crazy road trip is officially underway. In the first opening-round game, #9 Indiana State beat #8 Drake, 72-63 earlier this evening. Now in progress: #7 Evansville vs. #10 Illinois State. The cellar-dwelling Redbirds have the early lead, 15-12 — much to the delight of frequent commenter isuquinndog, no doubt. (We have plans to meet up with him at the stadium tomorrow, BTW.)

Becky and I will pick up the tourney tomorrow with the quarterfinals: #1 Wichita State vs. #9 Indiana State at 12:05 PM, #4 Creighton vs. #5 Bradley at 2:35 PM, #2 Southern Illinois vs. the Evansville/ISU winner at 6:05 PM, and #3 Missouri State vs. #6 Northern Iowa at 8:35 PM. All times CST (add an hour for EST; games televised on Fox Sports Midwest). We’ll be sitting in the Creighton section.

We’re staying at a Best Western in an eastern suburb of St. Louis (actually across the Mississippi River in Illinois) tonight, but then starting tomorrow night, we head over to Becky’s cousin Lisa’s place for the remainder of our stay. Hooray for having friends and relatives scattered in various miscellaneous places around the country! :) I swear, we go on a monthlong road trip and never have to stay at a hotel, we know so many people in so many different places. Anyway, as luck would have it, Becky’s Aunt Nancy is visitng this weekend too, so it’s going to be a veritable family reunion! I sense a wedding slideshow coming on. :)

P.S. From the “random kindness of strangers” department… a USC undergrad/Notre Dame Law alum sent me an anonymous donation of $100 via PayPal today! “I have enjoyed your blog whenever I get the chance,” wrote the fellow Irish Trojan. “Take this small token and enjoy a dinner with your wife while in St. Louis.” Well, wow! Thanks! What with our packed schedule of basketball and family stuff, I’m not sure if we’ll have time for a fancy dinner this weekend, but I promise you we’ll do something worthwhile with the gift.

UPDATE: Evansville 18, Illinois State 17 at halfitme. Cripes. Dick Bennett would be proud! Something tells me the Salukis aren’t going to have too much trouble containing these offenses…

UPDATE, 10:48 PM (9:48 CST): Now approaching Springfield, IL. GPS map here.

UPDATE, 11:45 PM (10:48 CST): Evansville wins, 52-45. Sorry, isuquinndog. So it’ll be Southern Illinois vs. Evansville tomorrow — an opportunity for the Salukis to avenge an inexplicable loss last week.

Becky and I are approaching Edwardsville, IL. (GPS map.)

Maybe there aren’t laser beams on their heads, but they’re kind of neat anyway: remote controlled sharks. The program, funded by DARPA, uses implants to manipulate the parts of the brain related to sense — thereby controlling where the shark believes is his next meal. Heh.

Posted by Brian (Briandot)

Following up on my earlier post about Central Connecticut State University…

CCSU, the #2 seed in the Northeast Conference, has a comfortable lead over #7 Sacred Heart late in the second half. No surprise there.

But — HOLY CRAP!! — the #1 seed, Fairleigh Dickenson, is losing to #8 seed Quinnipiac (another Connecticut school) by one point with a minute left. If Quinnipiac beats FDU, it’d be the biggest upset thus far in the young conference-tournament season, and it would make Central the favorite to reach the NCAA Tournament out of the NEC. (It would also give FDU, as a non-NCAA-bound regular-season conference champ, the first-ever automatic bid to the NIT.)

Scoreboard here and here. I’m following the action from the road. (Laptop hooked up to cell phone. God bless technology.)

UPDATE, 9:06 PM: Central wins! Woohoo! 1 down, 2 to go!

The score of the FDU-Quinnipiac game, however, has been “frozen” at 65-64 Quinnipiac with 1:05 left on both the Yahoo and ESPN scoreboards for like 20 minutes now. C’mon, we need an update!!! Did the Bobcats pull off the upse

UPDATE, 9:15 PM: Dammit! Fairleigh Dickinson pulled it out, 66-65. (See here.)

Well, still, Central is two wins away from Big Dance, and that’s the most important thing. They’ll host #3 Monmouth on Sunday, while FDU will host #5 Robert Morris. The winners play Wednesday for the conference title and automatic NCAA bid.

“Want to go to Gonzaga?” –Becky, during the early stages of our drive to St. Louis, heading west on I-90 — a highway that would indeed, if we stayed on it, take us straight to Spokane. In theory, we could get there in time for the WCC semis, if we made good time. (Getting tickets would be another matter.)

No, we’re not actually doing it. :) We’re now on I-55, en route to St. Louis, as planned. But the Gonzaga idea was tempting, even if it would mean missing a week of class and spending a small fortune… not that I logged onto eBay via cell phone and checked or anything…

Leaving for Saint Louis for the MVC tournament (and visiting relatives). We are en route now to the dog kennel, to drop off Robbie.

Former USC star Travis Claridge — the Pac-10’s top offensive linesman in 1999, my freshman year — has died. (Hat tip: Roger and BK.)

Central Connecticut State University, the #2 seed in the Northeast Conference, begins its run at the NCAA Tournament tonight in the first round of the NEC tourney.

Auspiciously, “CCSU is the NEC’s hottest team entering the NEC Tournament, having won five straight games and 11 of its last 14.” The Blue Devils host Sacred Heart at 7:00 PM. (Audio here, live stats here.) If they win, they’ll host a semifinal on Sunday, and then the championship game will be next Wednesday on ESPN2.

CCSU is one of my favorite teams by virtue of the fact that it’s the closest Division I college to my hometown — it’s in the next town over — and a whole bunch of kids from my high school went there. The Blue Devils made it to the NCAA Tournament in 2000, and, as a #15-seed, nearly knocked off #2 Iowa State. (The Cyclones didn’t learn their lesson; they lost to another #15 seed, Hampton, the next year.)

Central would probably be a #16-seed if they were to make it to the Big Dance this year. Fairleigh Dickinson, the NEC’s regular-season conference champ, is projected as a #16 by Joe Lunardi, and Central’s RPI is even lower than FDU’s.

Anyway… GO CENTRAL!!!

Stewart Mandel doesn’t care whether Adam Morrison or J.J. Redick wins the scoring title or Player of the Year.

No, I’m not re-taking ConLaw. :) But fellow 2L Brian Foster, who leads the review session for 1Ls in Professor Garnett’s class and therefore was at the lecture this morning, sends along this quote regarding the Louisiana Purchase:

“There’s nothing in the Constitution that says you can buy half the world from short Frenchmen.”

Heh.

Well, this is reassuring. (Hat tip: Briandot.)

P.S. In a more uplifting piece of D.C.-area news, a Maryland state senator performed the Heimlich on a man who was choking on a piece of seafood at an Italian restaurant in Annapolis. Turns out, the choking man was the guy who’s challenging him in an upcoming Democratic primary. So basically, a politician saved his opponent’s life. :)