We just saw the Stanford Tree on ESPN, which is televising the Virginia-Stanford NIT game. It did not appear drunk. :)

The first three NIT games are finished (scoreboard here), and eight contestants are tied for first in the NIT Pool with 3-for-3 prediction records, including defending champ Tom K. (a.k.a. Scientizzle).

UPDATE: Two more games completed, and it’s a 6-way tie.

Bubble teams Florida State and Michigan are in deep trouble late in the second half of their opening-round conference tournament games.

Also in trouble, early in the second half: Colorado and Arizona.

UPDATE: The Seminoles and the Wolverines both lost, to mediocre Minnesota and horrible Wake Forest, respectively. With teams like Syracuse winning and teams like GW losing, these guys are now in big trouble. Methinks they may be #1 seeds in the NIT. At any rate, this will gives new hope to teams like Creighton, Hofstra and George Mason, for whom today had previously been a horrible day thus far.

In other news, #7-seed Toledo upset #2-seed Northern Illinois in the MAC quarterfinals. Will #8-seed Buffalo follow suit tonight against #1-seed Ball State? LET’S GO, BUFFALO!!!

UPDATE 2: Upon further consideration, I think Florida State is out (a loss to Wake offsets a win over Duke, and their profile is extremely weak otherwise), but Michigan is still “in” at the moment — however, this drops them onto the bubble, and makes them vulnerable if there are more upsets (like, say, Nevada and/or Bucknell failing to win their conferences’ automatic bids, USC winning the Pac-10, Maryland making a run in the ACC tourney, etc.).

Florida State, though, just put someone else back in the tourney. Creighton should send Wake Forest flowers. :)

UPDATE 3: Colorado survived, beating Baylor by 4. And Arizona beat Stanford by 5, ending any thoughts of a miracle run to the NCAAs by those wacky Farm kids and their drunken, streaker Trees.

Stanford has a new Tree.

UPDATE: According to Mike, the new Tree is the “Tree” streaker discssed in this post.

LOL!

The Stanford Band has begun the process of picking the next Tree. The winner will be announced on Sunday.

The disgraced ex-Tree is apparently still involved in the process somehow, as she stated:

Looking back on the week, I think it went smashingly. I saw a lot of public nudity, insanity and humiliation, as well as the usual sex, drugs and rock and roll. The candidates all proved they’re heavy metal and it’s a shame that out of a pool of so many mind-blowing contestants only one, come Sunday, will be the Tree.

The article adds, “The details of the selection process — who exactly chooses the next tree and how — are shrouded in secrecy.” Heh. Kinda like picking the Pope. :)

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.

Stanford 39, Washington State 37. Final.

Holy crap. 39-37. In basketball. Major-conference basketball, no less. Perhaps Stanford’s players decided to follow the Tree’s example and play drunk, and convinced Wazzu’s players to do the same. :)

Other, less awful games of interest to yours truly, now in progress: San Diego at Gonzaga and Oregon State at USC. (In the latter game, they’re on pace to score more points in the first half than the Cardinal and Cougars managed in the whole game.)

UPDATE: Yup. USC 44, Oregon State 41 at halftime.

More on the Stanford-Wazzu suckfest:

The total of 76 points was the lowest in a Pac-10 game since Oregon State defeated Oregon 29-23 on March 23, 1984 (prior to the shot clock).

Stanford’s 39 points was the team’s lowest score in a victory since a 38-33 win over UCLA in 1946-47. Stanford had not scored fewer points in any game since a 42-34 loss to UCLA in 1981-82.

Washington State had not lost a game with so few points allowed since losing 37-36 at Washington in 1969-70.

Stanford shot 32.6 percent from the floor, including 30 percent on 3-pointers (3 for 10). Washington State shot 32.7 percent from the field, which included going 2-for-17 on 3-pointers.

Wazzu’s previous game was a 43-41 loss to Cal, so the Cougars have scored a grand total of 78 points in their last two games. Heh.

Guestblogger: David Kreutz

Remember the Stanford Tree story from yesterday?

You just had to know that it couldn’t stop there, right?

Apparently an economics major decided to “bare” the burden of replacing the tree (albeit unofficially) at Saturday’s game against Arizona. Picture here (possibly NSFW).

Okay, this is officially the funnest thing EVER.

The girl who, until recently, inhabited the infamous Stanford Tree — the utterly ridiculous mascot of the Stanford Cardinal — has been relieved of her arboreal duties after getting ridiculously drunk and being ejected from the Cal-Stanford basketball game on February 9. And there’s a picture!

ROFL!!

Here’s an excerpt from the Stanford Daily’s write-up:

Erin Lashnits, a coterminal student in biological sciences, has been suspended for the remainder of her tenure as the Stanford Tree.

Band Manager Mike Priest and Assistant Manager Adam Cohen announced their decision to Lashnits on Thursday night, just hours after UC-Berkeley Athletic Department officials Breathalyzed her at a .157 blood-alcohol content at halftime of the men’s basketball team’s 65-62 loss at Berkeley, according to sources, including several in the band. …

Cohen and Band Public Relations Director Sam Urmy, a sophomore, stressed that Lashnits’ troubles at Cal were merely the last of a laundry list of problems, many of them involving alcohol. Urmy said Lashnits was suspended for several weeks following an alcohol-related incident during Band Run at the start of the year, and was unable to perform at home football games as a result. …

Along with other Band members, Urmy added that punctuality and attendance were also issues, noting that Lashnits regularly showed up to games after tip-off — if at all. All told, Urmy said she chafed many with her “attitude to her position.”

Her “position” as a dancing tree, that would be. Heh.

At last, we have an answer to the question: “Just how bad would you have to behave to get yourself fired by the f-ing Stanford Band?” :)

Actually, it seems that fear of a further university crackdown on the notoriously unruly band is a big part of the reason why Lashnits’s behavior is not being tolerated. The rest of the band doesn’t want to be dragged through the mud because of the foolishness of one unruly evergreen. Even the ex-Tree herself was quick to suggest that the band shouldn’t suffer because of her actions: “This really isn’t indicative of the Band’s current situation or the Tree’s current situation,” Lashnits said (in perhaps the most ridicuous-sounding quote of the year).

Anyway, I guess we should say “the Tree is dead, long live the Tree,” because a new Tree will be “crowned” on March 4, according to the Daily — just in time for the Pac-10 Tournament, and perhaps the NCAAs (or, more likely, the NIT).

The question now is whether the men’s basketball team, fighting desperately for an NCAA berth, will be able to play up to its full potential during the next two weeks without the inspiration of watching an oversized plant dancing around on the sidelines. So far, not so good: the Cardinal are 1-2 since the Tree was uprooted, with the only win coming against lowly Arizona State. Who knows whether Lashnits’s arboreal enthusiasm — if she’d been able to stay sober, that is — would have been just what Stanford needed to get over the hump in those close, crucial games against Gonzaga and Arizona? :)

We can rest assured, however, that “even without the tree, the band will continue its ‘core mission of rocking out and bringing funk to the funkless’ for the rest of the month.” Well, thank goodness for that. Heaven forbid the Stanford Band, you know, tone it down at all!

Anyway, I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Ms. Lashnits for giving me a good laugh on a Tuesday afternoon. You’ll always be a Tree to me, Erin.

(Hat tip: Boi From Troy.)

P.S. If the Stanford Daily link is slow or refuses to load, try the Google cache.

UPDATE: She’s from Chappaqua, NY! (Hat tip: Mouse.) That’s where the Clintons live! Hey Bubba, you oughta give this girl a call. :)

UPDATE 2: My dad notes an even better quote that I somehow missed: “Lashnits…stresses that the ‘institution of the Tree’ has not been diminished.” LOL!!