Coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna were killed in a small plane crash while on a recruiting trip. Budke had been the coach at OSU since 2005 and Serna had worked with him for seven seasons, previously at Louisiana Tech.
The Cowgirls next two games have been cancelled as the school mourns.
How are your brackets? Yeah, mine are totally screwed too. I suppose this isn’t too surprising. I mean – how many people had VCU in the final four? Not very many. In fact:
Yeah, two out of almost six million.
Not too surprisingly out of the 64 brackets filled out for Draft Day Suit, none of us correctly picked the final four. The good news is that if you have one or two of the right teams in the final four you still might have a chance at winning.
Here are the top teams as of this morning.
It is looking good for you if you are MAJOKADABA.
So yeah, my brackets might suck, but I am loving this tournament. Who do you think will take it home?
Ok, full disclosure, I don’t watch much college basketball. I have a hard time mustering any attention to it pre-mid March, you know? I think it’s decent basketball, but the tournament is so compelling because it’s so frantic and so often really, really close. Otherwise, they’re taking a lot of ill-advised shots. Or as I like to say during pick-up, “Put a tent over that circus!”
You would think such ignorance would liberate me in making my picks, but alas, it has not been so. Instead I recall every prejudice I’ve ever had about any college basketball program ever and apply it to this year’s tourney despite its obvious insignficance.
“Duke, not with that pasty Danny Ferry!”
“Michigan with those long shorts!”
“Notre Dame? Oh, the pope would like that now wouldn’t he?”
Instead of polishing up my bracket in 10 minutes, I’d spend 3 to 5 work hours reading
Brackets even I can understand. I take the one on the far right.
synopses of all the teams and constructing a wonderful fantasy land in which 3 lines of text improve my
chances of success in some statistically significant way.
But the last few years I got smart and constructed a more “effective” strategy. I decided to always pick a team that is “unpopular” (i.e. not very good) with the expectation that if they win it, I’m guaranteed to be in the money, despite getting 4 to 8 correct picks in the first round.
Brilliant, right? I could have taken the “smart” pick, Ohio State. But I live IN Ohio. You know how many Nuts there are around here? Bunch-a-million (as my friend once replied when pondering how many records the Beatles had sold). Picking them would have required me to actually know something other than that Ohio State was good. Duke? Don’t they win like every year? These choices are far too obvious! One must think outside the tiny 3/4s boxes.
And man, am I looking like a genius right now. There are upsets all OVER the place. Butler’s making another unlikely run. AND something called “VICU” (do you spell the letters or try to say it as a word?? I mean, who are those guys?) is also in the Great 8. This looks like the perfect year to have applied my airtight strategy and come out like a bandit. Seriously, that Pitt pick is looking so sweet right about now.
Kye Allums, a player on the women’s basketball team at the George Washington University, announced yesterday that he is transgender, meaning that he is biologically female but identifies and lives as a man.
This makes Kye, previously known as Kay-Kay Allums, the first openly transgender male student-athlete to play for the Colonials’ Division I women’s team. He is also thought to be the first in the NCAA women’s basketball program.
Outsports ran the story Monday, featuring extensive quotes from Kye about his life and the process of defining who he is, up to his decision to go public with his story and continue his basketball career on the Colonials team.
GW announced this on their athletic department’s website, calling the story “A Colonial Transition.”
“I decided to transition, that is change my name and pronouns because it bothered me to hide who I am,” Allums said. “I am trying to help myself and others to be who they are.”
Allums, 21, a native of Hugo, Minn., changed his name legally in September and says that he has been open about his transgender identity with his teammates and coaches for some time now. In interviews on Comcast SportsNet last night, Allums spoke at length about his feelings about his gender identity and when he felt that it was important to speak out. He could not live as a woman when this is not how he felt, he said.
“I told my teammates first, and they, including my coaches, have supported me,” he said. “My teammates have embraced me as the big brother of the team. They have been my family, and I love them all.”
He also said in statements that he has felt supported by his university and the athletic leadership, .
“GW has been supportive during this transition. This means a lot. I didn’t choose to be born in this body and feel the way I do,” says Mr. Allums.
His coaches and GW officials agree. Senior Vice President for Student and Academic Support Services Robert A. Chernak said the University supports Kye and his right to make this decision, adding that Allums will not participate in any drug or surgical procedures for gender reassignment while he is a student and remains on the women’s basketball team. Kye says his physical condition remains biologically female and won’t affect his competition with female athletes.
Mike Bozeman, women’s basketball coach, said that he and the basketball program “support Kye’s right to make this decision.”
Kye averaged 7.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 24.9 minutes per game last season, and notched a 75 percent free-throw record. He will kick off his third season with the Colonials on Nov. 13 in his home state, playing the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay at the Best Buy Classic in Minneapolis.
The University of Connecticut women’s basketball team has won an NCAA women’s record of wins with 71 games in a row. 71.
I haven’t won 71 anything in a row, ever, excluding managing to get out of bed 71 days in a row which I have to admit is sometimes a little iffy. Have you?
The Huskies have won every game – every game – since March 11, 2003, by double-digits – specifically an average of 32.5 points. Melanie Jackson at ESPN listed some of the most memorable games in the streak.
Coach Geno Auriemma says it’s good for their sport.
“You know, there’s people talking about women’s basketball now that wouldn’t be talking about it this time of year because of what we’re doing,’’ he said. “We have a way here at Connecticut of making everybody around the country talk about women’s basketball. We’ve been known to do that for a long time.’’
Auriemma keeps the Huskies, including star players Tina Charles and Maya Moore, focused on the championship, downplaying the milestone celebrations. I guess this is understandable, because what happens when you finally lose, if you ever do? Who wants to think about that?
They certainly don’t, but I’m sure the team that hopes to beat them does. Congratulate these players in the meantime. They may not be allowed to celebrate, but even this Maryland fan will give them a round of applause today.
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