An evening basketball update…

Syracuse upset #10 Georgetown at the Carrier Dome this evening. The Orange, who were in Lunardi’s bracket this morning anyway, now definitely appear to be on the right side of the bubble, especially considering that they’ve officially won 10 f***ing games in the Big East. ;)

Less shocking was Central Connecticut State’s 79-54 win over Wagner. The Blue Devils finish the conference regular season undefeated at home, which is a good sign, since as the #1 seed, they’re guaranteed home-court advantage throughout the Northeast Conference tournament (which starts Thursday — see the One Stop Shop and click “ne” for details).

Last but not least, Gonzaga and San Diego are underway early.

UPDATE: Gonzaga wins! And Santa Clara and Pepperdine are in overtime. If the Waves win, Gonzaga wins the West Coast Conference regular-season championship outright, and gets the #1 seed in the WCC tournament. If Santa Clara survives, the Zags share the title, and get the #2 seed. Either way, they get a double-bye into the semifinals, which are Sunday in Portland. It’s a two-game season now… Go Zags!

UPDATE 2: Santa Clara loses! The Gonzaga Bulldogs are your 2007 West Coast Conference regular-season champions!! WOOHOO!!

I actually feel kind of bad for Santa Clara, though. Talk about a choke — in a conference that has been dominated by Gonzaga for so long, they had the regular-season title (and a guaranteed NIT bid, at least) in their grasp, and let it slip through their fingers with two straight road losses to bottom-feeder teams in the final weekend. Sucks for them.

For Gonzaga, though, another outright title… awesome.

On the other hand: I wonder if this will end up being bad news for the Zags. Could the Broncos’ late collapse motivate, rather than demoralize, them heading into the WCC tournament, and inspire them to win the auto bid? Hmm. Let’s hope not. GO ZAGS!!

According to ESPN’s Bubble Watch, both USC and Notre Dame are now NCAA Tournament “locks,” as is Tennessee. Joe Lunardi — who, incidentally, is promising daily Bracketology updates from now until Selection Sunday — has the Irish as a #6 seed (with a first-round matchup against my mom’s and Dmytro’s alma mater, Illinois), the Trojans as a #5 seed (against VCU in round one), and the Vols as a #9 (against Texas Tech … Bruce Pearl vs. Bobby Knight!).

Gonzaga remains a bubble team, according to the Watch, but is one of Lunardi’s “next four out” and probably needs to win the WCC Tournament this coming Sunday and Monday. The Zags can build momentum for that effort with a win tonight at San Diego (10:00 PM EST) in both teams’ regular-season finales.

And speaking of building momentum for conference tournaments: Central Connecticut State, which saw its 12-game winning streak snapped nine days ago, only to start a new streak on Thursday, hosts Wagner at 7:00 PM tonight in (again) both teams’ regular-season finales.

If Gonzaga and CCSU win their conference tourneys — they’ll both be favored — and if the projections of USC, ND and UT as “locks” are accurate, that’d be five of my seven favorite teams in the NCAAs (and all of my Big Three). Now if UConn and Buffalo could just make miraculous runs in the Big East and MAC tournaments, respectively… :)

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Is it really worth all this to become the next Stanford Tree? (Warning: descriptions of disgustingness.)

L.A. Weekly Hollywood columnist Nikke Finke says she’s been scarred by the awfulness of last night’s Oscar telecast:

As a friend emailed me, “this was like a Reagan era show.” That was the low-tech level of this year’s broadcast. Which makes me wonder in disbelief why the very rich Oscar telecast seriously stinted on tonight’s production values. Did Bernie The Accountant abscond with the show’s hefty budget? It was lacking in razzle-dazzle. It had no trash and flash. Halfway through this snore-fest, ABC was about to voluntarily pay the FCC $500,000 just to make Beyoncé’s boob pop out.

Nor did Sacha Baron Cohen appear. Asked to be a presenter, he said he would do it only if he could be in character as Borat. But the Powers-That-Be said, “No way,” thus eliminating what surely might have been an oasis of humor in a desert of mediocrity. Morons. …

In summary, it was the night that the Academy finally killed off what used to be its show-stopper of a movie awards. … Well, I say enough is enough. Who isn’t sick of getting stuck sitting through an ass-killing show that runs on and on beyond reason with no entertainment within it to speak of? As a comedian friend told me: “If this goes on any longer, they’re going to be reporting next weekend’s Friday night box office, the obituary package is going to be out of date, and the ballots will be going out for next years’ awards.” Frustration echoed by this emailer: “If they show another montage, I think it should be of people killing themselves while watching the Oscars.”

Finke’s Oscar liveblog has lots more good stuff, including this reference to producer Laura Ziskin (who, I regretfully must point out, is a USC grad), echoing something I wrote at around the same time:

I just received this very apt email with the subject line: “PLEASE FIRE ZISKIN MID-SHOW”. I agree whole-heartedly. It continues: “LAURA ZISKIN IS A TRUE DISGRACE. HOW THE HELL CAN SHE JUSTIFY THIS SH*T? WORST. OSCAR. TELECAST. EVER. IN. THE. HISTORY. OF TV. ABYSMALLY HORRIBLE. ARROGANT FOR THEM TO START AT 5:30 [PST] INSTEAD OF 5 PM WHEN THEY KNOW IT’S 4 HOURS LONG. THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT VIEWERS ON EAST COAST AND THEY SURE DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYBODY EXCEPT THEIR OWN INFLATED EGOMANIAC SELVES.”

Indeed.

There are 52 Bengal Bouts fights tonight, three of them featuring NDLS students:

Patrick Salvi, 163lb. Weight Division, around 9:30pm in the Main Boxing Arena

Colin Dougherty, 175lb. Weight Division, around 10:15pm in the Main Boxing Arena

Geoffrey Spiess, Super Heavyweight Division, around 8:45pm in the Boxing Room (between Gates 1 and 2 in the JACC, downstairs–near the fieldhouse)

Good luck, guys! Goooo Law Students, Beeeeat (Up) Undergrads!

A federal judge has dimissed a juror in the case against former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, The Associated Press reports.

Visit CNN for the latest.

The winners: Marty and Kristin.

I coulda been a contender. Damn you, Scorcese! :) But congrats to Kristin, a Notre Dame 2L and Gonzaga alum, who won the 3rd annual BrendanLoy.com Oscar Pool thanks to The Departed’s Best Picture victory. Here are the Top 10:

1. Kristin West 70
2(t). Colin S. 65
2(t). Jeff Vaca 65
4(t). Chris Aemisegger 62
4(t). Marty West 62
6(t). kcatnd 60
6(t). V 60
8. NDLS2006 58
9(t). Angela Holder 57
9(t). Brendan Loy 57

Kristin’s 70 points (out of a possible 80) is just shy of Chris McLemore’s winning total of 72 last year, and well ahead of Jackie Domaingue’s 56 points two years ago.

Kristin got 16 of the 24 awards right, erring only on Editing, Animated Feature Film, Foreign Language Film, Documentary Short, Live Action Short and Animated Short (worth 1 point each) and Original Score and Song (worth 2 points each). She got all the “major” awards right, and half of the “minor” awards.

As noted below, I would have won the pool if Babel (or The Queen) had won Best Picture. Interestingly enough, Vicki from NJ would have been in my position if, much earlier in the night, Eddie Murphy had won Best Supporting Actor. If that had happened, it would have been the third straight year Vicki lost the Oscar Pool at the wire thanks to a plausible but incorrect Best Picture pick (like me, she picked Babel). But Alan Arkin’s upset win over Eddie Murphy mathemetically eliminated Vicki early in the evening, which is perhaps merciful. :) She finished 15th.

Also worth noting: Chris Aemisegger, a fellow Notre Dame 3L and my ex-roommate, finished in the Top 4 for the third consecutive year. He was second last year and third two years ago. This year he tied for fourth.

Full standings after the jump.

P.S. This is the second consecutive year the Oscar Pool has been won by a redhead! ;)

UPDATE: I’ve added this to the BrendanLoy.com contests Bloypedia page.

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With only one award remaining, the 3rd annual BrendanLoy.com Oscar Pool comes down to this:

• If either Babel or The Queen win Best Picture, I (Brendan Loy) win the contest.
• If The Departed wins, Kristin West wins.
• If Letters from Iwo Jima wins, Brandon Minich wins.
• If Little Miss Sunshine wins, Rachel L. wins.