It's tournament time, and Texas is looking at an early exit (either a first round loss to a very good Nevada team or a drilling in the 2nd round at the hands of Illinois). But that's ok, because Maryland didn't make the tournament, and that makes me happy. Maryland is my hate school. I always wish failure on them. You think it'd be A&M since I went to UT as an undergrad (86-90), but I actually don't mind when A&M does well (as long as they lose to UT, because that's the focus of their entire pathetic lives).
When I was at UT, I used to go to a lot of Lady Longhorns basketball games. They were very good (top five), so they almost always won, and they were always competing for a title. Plus the crowds were so small you could sit wherever you wanted. The sister or cousin (can't remember) of one of my friends was on the team, and that friend was the hook that dragged a lot of us down there. We lived in a big dorm on campus, so we were always looking for something to do, and the coliseum was a two minute walk with free student tickets. Eventually, we all became fans.
Well, during one tournament appearance at home (they have to give top teams home court to draw decent crowds), they lost to Maryland on a last-second shot. A really good senior class was leaving that year, and it was their last time on the court, so the band struck up the alma mater, as is traditional for every school. After a game is over, the home team band of any school will always play the alma mater, and the opponents usually respect it. About halfway through, all the players are crying, etc., and the jackass Maryland band (which we were sitting a few rows behind) starts playing their fight song and flipping off the crowd. It was the capper of an obnoxious night by those goons.
It's stupid, but there it is. I don't wish failure on the school. I just want the members of that band to live unhappy lives, and if Maryland losing or getting screwed might make a little rain fall into their lives, so much the better. I hope they're crying their eyes out and moping around all day in their Maryland sweats about how they got screwed. If others are unhappy besides the members of that band, it is unfortunate collateral damage. I can hold a grudge with the best of 'em.
I'm glad I got that off my chest.
Posted by Observer at March 16, 2005 07:29 AMComments on entries can only be made in pop-up windows while those entries are still on the main index page. Sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but this blocks about 99.99% of the spam the blog receives.
Wow, I'm really sorry the MD band was such a bunch of pricks back then. I realise it doesn't matter to you, but those asswipes aren't in the band anymore. They graduated long ago to be jackasses in their post college lives. MD's women's team has never been anything to write home about so I'm not sure why they were such idiots.
I graduated from the U of MD system, and since my real school has no sports to speak of, but a kick ass Biology dept, I root for College Park by default and pretty much anyone playing Duke. I respect Duke, but I don't like them. I don't really hate any school.
Posted by: Liz on March 16, 2005 01:23 PMAh, tournament time. I must confess that I have Texas out in the first round against Nevada but that's just playing percentages, not anything in particular. I figure either way the Illini smash either one of them in the second round.
My team-to-hate is Duke, not because they are always there, but because I have seen too many examples of we're going to be there and sportsmanship-be-damned. I still remember Laettner stepping on a Kentucky player lying on the floor (for which he got a technical but not the game ejection that he deserved and which had, in fact, been handed out to a player for a similar altercation earlier that very season)then Duke having the clout to have the incident "erased" from all the follow-up as he went on to be named ACC player of the year and got no less than 4 post-season awards. (In fact, the only records I can find of it in a web search these days are in UK pages on the incident.)
Sorry, just not my idea of sportsmanship and the fact that Duke and Coach K condoned it lowered them all in my eyes.
Posted by: Seattle Astronomer on March 16, 2005 05:04 PMWell, hell, hating Duke is easy. Everyone hates Duke who isn't a big fan. :) Hating someone obscure like Maryland for some reason no one else could really grasp, now that requires some effort. At least now if Maryland wins or does something good, I'll know Liz is happy, which will partially offset the pain.
Posted by: Observer on March 16, 2005 05:11 PMI'm waiting for the Huskies to become the first #1 seed ever to get booted out in the first round.
Posted by: Feff the eternal Pessimist on March 16, 2005 05:59 PMMan, I couldn't manage to pick Montana to do that. I have to admit that I even have them winning in the second round although it is possible that chokedom will visit them then. I figured it more likely that Louisville or GA Tech would manage the feat though. By that time, the choke will be looming over them big.
Posted by: Seattle Astronomer on March 16, 2005 06:42 PMHating Duke is easy -- but I'll do it. I don't need my hate to be challenging. And since I hate Duke, I can like Maryland.
Posted by: Polerand on March 17, 2005 01:23 PMI admit I don't hate Duke any more than I hate any of the ACC schools in North Carolina, which sounds like it's a stronger statement about UNC and NC State than anything else. That goes back to loathing Dean Smith and the "four corner offense" ... anyone who does something that requires a fundamental rules change (the shot clock) to take away something so patently counter to an enjoyable game gets included in the list of folks who need to be dipped in LN2 and run through a chipper. All those North Carolina schools are the same anyway (from the perspective of an 10/11-year-old California boy to whom all the states on the Atlantic coast were distant annoyances; just a bunch of garbage you had to wade through for six months in Social Studies before you got to the stuff that mattered)... to show how ignorant I was of anywhere east of Denver, at that time I thought Notre Dame was there in Carolina as well.
Ain't childhood prejudices grand?
Posted by: Feff on March 17, 2005 03:42 PMHere’s more March Madness – Check out this bracket with Iraqi teams: http://bloogeyman.blogspot.com/2005/03/march-madness-part-1-iraqetology.html
And here's some commentary -http://bloogeyman.blogspot.com/2005/03/march-madness-part-2-bracket-breakdown.html - by Gumby Bryant on the ‘Coalition of the Willing’s bracket
Posted by: on March 18, 2005 01:06 PM