The red is Bradley fans. This place is sold out and is loud. Tied at 26 at half.

On Drudge right now:

Heh.

Yeah, he probably just forgot to put in a <hr> tag, but still. It’s fun to make fun.

(You can read my actual post about tonight’s eclipse here.)

After a couple of nationally televised big-conference thrillers that ended within about 60 seconds of one another — Kansas over Texas on CBS and Wisconsin over Michigan State on ESPN — the low-majors and mid-majors take center stage. In the Big South title game (on ESPN now), #1-seed Winthrop has a 23-19 lead over #6-seed VMI midway through the first half in what is already a highly entertaining, back-and-forth offensive battle.

If I could be assured that Winthrop would get an at-large bid despite a loss today, I’d totally be rooting for VMI. Not only are they Championship Fortnight’s first real Cinderella story, but their “freakout style” of absurdly high-octane offense would make for perhaps the most entertaining play-in game ever. But because Winthrop’s at-large hopes would be very shaky with a loss today, and because I want to see them do damage in the tournament, I have to root for ‘em today. Go Eagles!

Meanwhile, on Fox Sports Midwest and Comcast SportsNet in a few minutes, #1 Southern Illinois plays #4 Bradley in the first Missouri Valley semifinal. Coming up later on ESPN2: #1 East Tennessee State vs. #2 Belmont in the Atlantic Sun title game at 4pm, #1 Davidson vs. #6 College of Charleston in the Southern Conference title game at 6pm, and #1 Austin Peay vs. #2 Eastern Kentucky in the Ohio Valley title game at 8pm. Meanwhile, back on FSN and Comcast, #2 Creighton plays #3 Missouri State in the other MVC semi at 5:05 or thereabouts.

Earlier today, Hartford followed in Yale’s footsteps as the second Connecticut team to be eliminated from NCAA consideration, as the #8-seeded Hawks lost to #1 Vermont in the America East quarterfinals, 81-62. Later, as I mentioned yesterday, Fairfield becomes the next Connecticut team to see its season come down to a single game, in a 10:00 PM MAAC quarterfinal against Loyola (MD).

Wow, what a long day of hoops. Four games over 10 hours. And you can’t eat or drink anything because you have to take a loan out to do it!

In game one, top seed Southern Illinois took care of Drake 71-59 in game that was closer than that. SIU took a 12 point lead with about 12 minutes left and took out starters. That let Drake back into the game and they cut the lead to about 5 or so when SIU had to throw their starters back in to keep the lead. On a side note, SIU has the hottest dance line out of any of the Valley teams. Wow.

Read about the other three games after the jump.
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Yahoo! Sports has a nice write-up on Southern Illinois and their chances of earning a #2 seed in the NCAA Tournament… but whoever designed the layouts on the front page and the college hoops page might want to do a little fact-checking:

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In a case of “my bigotry is better than your bigotry,” a young woman is suing because she got sent to the principal’s office. Why? Because classmates teased her about her LDS status, and she responded, “‘That’s so gay.”

I agree with the retired teacher in the article. Educate; don’t punish. But I don’t feel like emphasizing that part of the story. I feel like emphasizing the fact that this girl is an idiot with a limited vocabulary. Probably spoiled, too. Every time I hear that phrase, I can pretty well rest assured that the person who used it is quite shallow, somebody who doesn’t like thinking much and who doesn’t care to learn how to express themselves in clear and articulate fashion. I wonder how she’d feel if the most common way for morons to express contempt for an idea was to say, “Man, that’s so Mormon!” or “What are you, Mormon?”

Ah, well. As H.L. Mencken said, when you defend free speech, you must inevitably defend bastards.

Far be it from me ever to think of politically Annoying any denizens of this here blog (which surely would constitute Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Non Sports Page :) but it’s worth noting that the saintly Senator, a Democrat from Connecticut ;}, today delivers his Party’s response to the Republican President’s weekly radio broadcast. Here’s the text, the subject being the scandalous situation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

A good speech ~ sufficiently so for me to grant Rebbe Joe absolution :> for his invocation of the Gnostic First Commandment, i.e., “…together, we must prevent this from ever happening again.” (Said standard Perfectionist locution being Obligatory in such circumstances nowadays, the sin may be deemed Venial & the rhetoric freely-translated as, “These are very crappy practices and conditions which we shall work to Discourage and Deter in the future.” ;)

Read the whole things. Go, Dem Joe! :]

Switzerland accidentally invaded Liechtenstein late last week.

(Hat tip: Casey, who says this is a sign that “the Swiss are embarking on heinous plans for world domination.”)

Which 2006-07 college-football player will follow in the footsteps of Carson Palmer, Reggie Bush and other big-name stars to grace the cover of the popular EA Sports NCAA Football video game? Troy Smith? Chris Leak? Brady Quinn? Would you believe… Jared Zabransky?

Cool. (Hat tip: C. Bassett.)

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The long-awaited Southern Conference final between Appalachian State and Davidson — two teams on the periphery of the bubble all season long — will not happen. #1-seeded Davidson did its part, thumping #5 Furman 91-68 in its semifinal, but #3 College of Charleston made the most of its home-court advantage (the tournament is played at the “neutral site” of North Charleston Coliseum in North Charleston, S.C.) and upset #2 App. State, 89-87 in overtime. Dammit. So tomorrow’s 6:00 PM title game, moved from ESPN2 to ESPN because of the anticipated showdown of two teams with a combined 54 wins, will instead feature the unheralded Cougars playing David to a Goliath named Davidson. As for the Mountaineers… well done, nice season, hope you enjoy the NIT. :(

In other hoops news tonight (in addition to the Missouri Valley stuff already discussed in Mike’s posts), the first NCAA berth of the season has been clinched — by Penn of the Ivy League, which easily dipatched Yale to earn its third straight regular-season title and auto bid.

But while Yale became the first of Connecticut’s six Division I teams to be eliminated from NCAA consideration, Hartford survived with a 2-point win over Stony Brook in the America East tournament’s 8-9 game. Now the Hawks face a stiffer test: against #1 seed Vermont. That likely slaughter game is at noon tomorrow. (Possible live audio here; I’m not sure.)

Another Connecticut team’s season comes down to tomorrow as well. #6 Fairfield plays #3 Loyola (Md.) at 10:00 PM in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference quarterfinals. The good news for the Stags: it’s in Bridgeport, which is sort of like a home-court advantage. (Live audio here.)

Oh, and Western Illinois, the college that my mom attended for two years (before transferring to the University of Illinois), also has what could be its last hurrah of the season tomorrow. The #7-seeded Leathernecks face #2 Oakland in the Mid-Continent quarterfinals at 9:30 PM. (Live audio here.)

Other games of interest tomorrow:

• VMI at Winthrop (Big South title game), 2:00 PM, ESPN
• Southern Illinois vs. Bradley (MVC semis), 2:35 PM, Fox Sports Midwest and Comcast Ch. 37
• Notre Dame at Rutgers, 4:00 PM, ESPN
• Belmont at East Tennessee State (Atlantic Sun title game), 4:00 PM, ESPN2
• Creighton vs. Missouri State (MVC semis), 5:05 PM, Fox Sports Midwest and Comcast Ch. 37
• USC at Wazzu, 7:00 PM, Fox Prime Ticket and Fox College Sports Pacific
• Austin Peay vs. Eastern Kentucky (Ohio Valley title game), 8:00 PM, ESPN2
• The CAA quarterfinals, all day (details here)

Becky and I just got back from the DeBartolo, where we watched a screening of the documentary Screamers, part of Notre Dame’s spring film series of movies about genocide. And I must say, as movies about genocide go, Screamers is an odd one. It’s about 50 percent historical documentary about the Armenian genocide, 30 percent concert tour DVD for System of a Down, and 20 percent a mish-mash of other elements, including endless interviews with Harvard professor Samantha Power, who is apparently academia’s one and only expert on genocide.

[UPDATE: Here’s Becky’s review of the film. It’s kind of funny how we make a lot of the same points, though we didn’t talk about our respective reviews until both were finished — although we were sitting on the couch next to each other, writing them simultaneously. Heh. We’re such freaking nerds.]

[UPDATE 2: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! Please have a look around. If you don’t like college basketball, you may want to visit my Non-Sports Page instead of my homepage, as there are a whole lot of hoops-related posts right now. On the other hand, if you like hoops, go here for all my posts on Championship Week(s).]

The movie’s oddest moment occurred during one of the “concert tour DVD” segments. System of a Down (”SOAD” to the cool kids) is a metal band comprised of four grandchildren of Armenian genocide survivors, and they make it a point to educate their legions of fans about the oft-denied atrocity that killed off most of their ancestors. So, in the movie, we see them at one of their concerts, standing silently on stage while a mini-documentary about the genocide is played for concertgoers on a giant screen. In the background, we hear the typical sort of noises that you’d expect at a rock concert, including quite a bit of hooting and cheering, which is strange enough when it happens while a narrator is talking about the mass extermination of millions of people. But then came the strangest moment of all, when the face of one of the Turkish leaders who orchestrated the genocide appears on the screen. The crowd starts vigorously booing him, as if he’s some sports idol they don’t like. More than anything else, it reminded me of how the crowds at ESPN GameDay react when someone from the opposing team is shown on the screen. Yet here, the crowd was reacting not to a hated coach or quarterback, but to the architect of a crime against humanity. I suppose booing is better than cheering, but the reaction still seemed grossly inappropriate somehow. A negative reaction is of course appropriate, but they’re reacting to something so much weightier and more profound than a simple “boo” can possibly hope to express. It was just weird.

As for the substance of the movie… it had its moments, made some valid points, and of course the basic bottom-line message — that genocide is very bad, and that people who say “never again” but then let it happen again are hypocrites — is pretty much impossible to argue against. That said, I was struck by the naivete and, well, hypocrisy, actually, of many of the true believers. One bloke waiting in line for a SOAD concert in London said he likes the band because they’re “anti-Bush and anti-Blair,” like him. He asserted that this position is obviously correct because (this may not be a direct quote, but it’s close) “I’m anti-war in principle, and that’s something you can’t really argue against.” To which I could only think: “Oh, really? So I guess, since you’re ‘anti-war in principle,’ you would have been opposed to World War II as well? You know, the war that finally — far too late, of course — ended the Holocaust? Yeah, can’t really argue against that!”

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Shocker nation is excited as they lead Missouri State 34 32 at the half.

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: It’s tied at 60 with 4:09 left. Yikes! Missouri State needs this win! And the Valley probably needs them to get it, lest this be a two-bid year (unless Bradley or Wichita State wins the auto bid). GO BEARS!

You can listen live on ShockerRadio.com or KFNS The Fan out of St. Louis.

UPDATE 2: Bears win!!! Wichita State misses the three-pointer in the final seconds, and it’s a 67-64 Missouri State victory. The Bears should be dancing!

So, in a development bordering on the bizarre, the Missouri Valley Conference quarterfinals go according to seed! Heh. The semifinals will be #1 Southern Illinois vs. #4 Bradley and #2 Creighton vs. #3 Missouri State.

Here’s the radio call from KFNS. It starts with MO State having possession and a 2-point lead:

source file

And here’s the call from ShockerRadio:

A reporter interviews some Wichita State fans. Creighton leads Indiana State 32-20 at half.

My five dollar water. :) BU beats UNI 51-48 on a Will Franklin 3pt FG with two seconds left.

Mike has the day’s biggest games covered with his live reports from the Missouri Valley tournament in St. Louis. He won’t be happy about the Bradley-UNI result; the Braves, bitter rivals of Mike’s beloved Illinois State Redbirds, just wrapped up a win over the Panthers to keep their NCAA dreams alive and set up a semifinal rematch of last year’s memorable title game against Southern Illinois. (Admittedly, it was memorable mostly for falling SIU cheerleaders, but still.)

Today’s most important Missouri Valley game is the last one, at 9:35 PM EST: Missouri State vs. Wichita State, the #3 vs. #6 quarterfinal that MO State simply must win to bolster its at-large profile and solidify the case for a 3-bid Valley. Missouri State was the #3 seed last year, too, but lost to Northern Iowa in the 3-6 game and ended up in the NIT. Obviously, they hope not to repeat that this year. GO BEARS!

But there are also some games of interest outside the MVC tonight. In the Southern Conference, Davidson and Appalachian State play at 6:00 and 8:30, respectively, in semifinal games against Furman and College of Charleson. If both favorites win, tomorrow’s SoCon title game would be the long-anticipated dream matchup between two teams with a combined total of 54 wins. In all likelihood, only one’s getting in, but it would at least make great fodder for low-major discussion on Selection Sunday. And if nothing else, a Davidson-App State final should be a fantastic game that would, as Kyle Whelliston says, “make Pat Forde’s trip down there worthwhile.”

Also tonight, two of Connecticut’s six Division I basketball schools have their backs against the wall, in terms of NCAA Tournament dreams. In the America East conference, #8 seed Hartford plays #9 Stony Brook for the right to see their tourney hopes die another day (against top seed Vermont tomorrow). And in the Ivy League, which doesn’t have a conference tournament, Yale must win at Pennsylvania tonight to stay alive for the regular-season title and auto bid. Both games start at 7:00 PM. Go Hawks! Go Elis!

You can follow all the action on ESPN’s scoreboard page. And looking a little further ahead, Whelliston previews the weekend of conference championship games.