No, seriously, we feel terrible.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Fear Pity the Turtle

If you are looking for a ticket out of College Park, best book early - some very tall gentlemen are taking up all the good seats. If you trying to get into town, however, feel free to browse - all seats are free.

In the wake of the Tyree Evans saga and the transfer of Gus Gilchrist, wouldbe bench player Shane Walker finalized his transfer by announcing his move up the road to Loyola. If you are keeping score at home, that’s -1 outside shooter, -2 post players, and +3 open scholarships for Gary Williams.

But with the recruiting well for the coming season now dry and expected stud Sean Mosley struggling to qualify academically, the Terps may be down to nine scholarship players for next year. Williams’ options to fill out the roster: more land mine ju-co transfers, unsigned risks who can’t qualify academically or physically, or walk-ons. All are terrible choices for Williams; all are fantastic possibilities for those of us who love watching Maryland and Williams squirm.

The roster problems come on the heels of a rough stretch for the Terps … [snickers under his breath] … having missed the tournament three of the last four years . The program’s struggles seem strange, given that Maryland won the national championship only six years ago - which was so forever ago that Juan Dixon is now collecting Social Security.

But perhaps there is now a six year curse. Six years after winning 2000 title, Michigan State lost to lowly George Mason in the first round. 1999 champ UConn got upset in the 2nd round by NC State in 2005. As for 2001 champ Duke … ugh:

Four more headlines, including some moderately NSFW work, after the jump.

(more…)

We mistakenly appended this to the end of the roundup this morning - early morning + lack of coffee = editing mistakes - but it’s front page level disgusting, so we’ll repost it without shame. While putzing around, we found this lovely mailbag by David James, the lead sports anchor for KUTV, Salt Lake’s CBS affiliate. Sure, it’s two months old, but it helpfully dispels some misconceptions about our friends from LDS country:

1) The evangelical South and the Mormon West find common earth on bad grammar, as evidenced by this fine writer, but moral celebratin’ is a whole other matter:

BYU new slogan (One & Done) As a Ute Alum I am tired of the BYU fans talking trash about the Utes basketball program just because they happen to be down at the moment and saying that the Utes just want to be them, not true, if anything it is the other way around. At least when the Utes go to the dance they do more than just have cookies and punch, they actually dance. The Utes do not want to be BYU they want to get back to where they were and they will.

Utes dance? Scandal! Next they’ll tell us the punch was spiked, and that there were finger sandwiches in addition to those cookies.

2) Proper church lurnin’ aside, the pure minds of these fine folks are challenged by the same sins as all sports fans: common wisdom, blind loyalty, uncontrolled expectations and a colloquial tongue:

People don’t give a rat’s ass about MWC championships. The only thing that matters are BCS wins and NCAA wins. Does anyone care that UTAH lost to UNLV in 98? No they remember going to the final four! Beating Wyoming is something you are supposed to do. Beat someone you are not supposed to beat.

Truer words have never been spoken. In fact, if all of you haven’t beaten Wyoming today, we must ask: why do you hate freedom?

3) Nightmare fuel knows no religion. That’s the only explanation for why Messr. James shared this photo in the mailbag, and why we pass it along to you now:

Just plausible enough to not be a PS job - just frightening enough to keep us up tonight.

We promise (well, sort of) that this will be our last Psycho T post for a while. In yesterday’s Roundup, we featured a picture of Sen. Obama driving on Tyler Hansbrough during their pickup game in Chapel Hill Tuesday, with Hansbrough in a clear position to block his shot. Our caption - “This likely won’t end well.”

Well, video is now available from the pickup game … and it didn’t end well for either man. (Key clip at the 0:40 mark.)

Hansbrough gave Obama a free look at the basket instead of swatting him like a fly, and Obama couldn’t finish the deal. Both lose points for the fiasco, though Obama gets them back for (a) recognizing that Hansbrough went easy on him and (b) playing the post despite being way undersized against the Tarheels.

Seriously, no more posts involving Psycho T for a while. Unless he does something really funny.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - In response to demands from coaches and fans of college basketball, as well as rising rancor from media coverage of the sport, the NCAA promised that it would make changes to the way in which college basketball chooses its national champion starting in 2009.

“We didn’t want to throw away seventy years of tradition on a whim, but tension against the tournament-style format has been building for years,” said NCAA President Myles Brand on Monday morning after a three-hour meeting with university presidents. “Ultimately, we think that it is time that college basketball came into agreement with our other major revenue sport so that the fans can finally be satisfied with end-of-season matchups that are both satisfying and will conclusively determine the best team in the sport.”

The new Poll of Objective and Observable Percentages (POOP) system*, designed by ACC Commissioner and BCS President John Swofford and a team of trained monkeys, is based on the successful Bowl Championship Series used in Division I-A football. Teams will be rated on a weekly basis, starting Jan. 1 of each year / season. The rankings will take into account three factors: the team’s rank in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), the team’s rank in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll, and the team’s average rating across eight computer-based ranking systems. Each of these three sources will be treated equally, and the average of the three values will constitute the team’s straight POOP score.

“Our hope is that by using POOP to determine who plays for the national championship, rather than the current haphazard system of the NCAA tournament, we’ll be able to restore some normalcy to the proceedings,” said Swofford. “I mean, the whole March Madness name is a double-edged sword, ya know?”
(more…)

In response to yesterday’s Morning Roundup, a few kind individuals pointed out that the University of San Diego, the team Saint Mary’s knocked off Monday night, is also a Catholic school. A quick check of the most authoritative source available to budding lawyas confirms that seven out of eight members of the West Coast Conference are run by children of the Bishop of Rome.

Um … whoops. Must of missed all the unis at mass on Sunday. Let me bring out Sister Mary Katherine for an appropriate punishment.

[rubs wrists] Sister needs to get laid.

Anyway, the overall point stands - Catholic schools have a weird habit of dominating small conference ball, even when they don’t control more than half of the teams in question. (See: A-10 and WCC this year, Patriot and MAAC most years, not to mention all the Jessy schools in major conferences and the biggest upset in college basketball history.)

Whelliston probably has a historical explanation for this, but the only story we can come up with is that just because player aren’t ready for big conference ball doesn’t mean they aren’t itchin’ for big conference poon - and wherever go the priests, there go the school girls.

Obligatory, if utterly NSFW video that is totally acceptable because, dammit, The Kentucky Fried Movie was an important cultural moment after the jump.
(more…)