A nice first line by the NYT sportswriter Adam Zagoria, in "N.C.A.A. Men’s Tournament: No. 2 Seed Kentucky Downed By St. Peter’s/St. Peter’s, a No. 15 seed from Jersey City, N.J., toppled one of the most popular national title picks in the Kentucky Wildcats."
The St. Peter's team is called the Peacocks. I like teams to be named after animals, and it's always fun to imagine the actual animals fighting — in this case, peacocks against wildcats. Ha ha.
I liked this:
St. Peter’s guard Doug Edert hit a floater that rolled around the rim before dropping in to tie the game at 71 and send it to overtime.
[Peacocks Coach Shaheen] Holloway was asked after the game: “Did you ever get nervous?”
“Nah — for what?” he said. “It’s basketball.”
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23 comments:
My favorite part of March Madness is watching the top teams get beat by the underdogs!! Congratulations to St. Peters!! I bet this crushed a lot of brackets.
Great comment by the coach. Keeping things in perspective.
Also winning on St. Patrick’s Day: the Gaels of St. Mary’s and (in a game that started on the 16th but finished after midnight) Notre Dame. It’s a pattern!
This years March Madness died for my yesterday. Worst game they've played all year. Still not quiet over it, but better.
We moved from Chicagoland to Lexington this past spring. My wife and I are both Indiana University grads, so while the rest of our city is in mourning, well, let's just say at Ernesthome we're not!
I don't watch college sports, but love reading these type of stories. It's important to see the beauty and joy in our world. It's not just "basketball"
Kentucky is a horrible program. They’ve cheated in recruiting for decades and have never really been punished.
Their fans are the worst. One of my friends is a college basketball ref. He made some good calls in an NCAA tournament game against Kentucky and the Wildcats lost, Contrary to the rules, the coach complained about it in the post game presser. A sports radio guy inflamed the hillbillies and they attacked my friend and his business. They got his home phone number. Death threats. The sheriff and Omaha police had to protect him.
He sued the radio station, but lost. You can look it up. Sixth Circuit: Higgins v. Kentucky Sports Radio.
Glad Kentucky lost. Everyone hates Kentucky.
Somewhere yesterday I saw a story about St Peters trying to give left-over tickets before yesterday's game to Kentucky for redistribution, and they were all "Nah, thanks" because Kentucky was focused on tomorrow's game. Oops.
It's always awesome when Kentucky (or Kansas, or Arizona) loses to an underdog in the NCAAs.
MadisonMan.
Kansas is going down tomorrow! Jays win!
I saw the post-game interview as well and it was great. If I had a kid who played basketball, that's the coach I'd want him to have. For some reason it reminded me of the pro football coa.h who reacted to be called a genius by saying, something along the lnes of 'I'm no genius, just smart enough to think of this stuff and dumb enough to think it matters',
I bet this crushed a lot of brackets.
It depends on how your pool is scored, but the general consensus is it crushed so many brackets it had no impact at all.
David Begley said...
Kentucky is a horrible program. They’ve cheated in recruiting for decades and have never really been punished.
I was once a voracious consumer of college BB but I've let an algorithm choose my bracket for years. On seeing Calipari last night my vocal reaction was How in the Hell is he still coaching?
The Peacock coach had nothing to lose.
The Kentucky coach, however...
But the Kentucky coach gave a good interview after the game that was very classy.
That’s the best part of the tournament…the upsets in the madness of the early rounds. Can’t bring myself to weep for KY. I’d love to wave goodbye to Duke too…. I heard the St Peter’s coach’s make the comment and smiled.
Happily watched the Gaels win handily. No campus as pretty as St. Mary’s- I grew up a few miles away from the school. But…the best play of that game was by the IN cheerleaders with the stuck ball. It was a great moment.
https://twitter.com/MarchMadnessMBB/status/1504621225959600135?s=20&t=yiHTulEkOYiIwyCw9JiRxA
Longtime Kentucky fan here. This Kentucky team was overrated- should have been a 5 or 6 seed in my opinion. They just suck at three point shooting- without the transfer from West Virginia, they wouldn't have even been a winning team record-wise. I had them losing to Murray State in round 2 in my "serious" bracket entry- the one I where I actually pick the most likely winners each round, and I didn't have them in the final 8 in any of them, and that is with them getting what I considered an easy path.
Its upsets like this that always make the NCAA tournament fun to follow. Unlike the NBA, which has playoffs that drag on for two months, and always ends up with 1 of 4 teams everyone predicted winning the whole thing.
I'll maybe watch some of it this weekend.
Do the women's squads at St Peter's play as Peahens or as the Lady Peacocks? Peafowl doesn't sound right.
Pomona-Pitzer here in SoCal are nicknamed the Sagehens.
EAB, thanks for the link! I watched some of the Indiana game but missed that. Agree it is the paly of the game.
Lesson learned: Never send a ref to do a cheerleader's job. (Thanks for the link EAB.)
Ladies teams are "The Peahens."
All copied from Wikipedia:
"Saint Peter's University is the only NCAA Division I institution whose mascot is the peacock. This choice was made for several reasons. Primarily, the land on which Saint Peter's now stands was once owned by a man named Michael Reyniersz Pauw, whose last name means "peacock" in Dutch. His extensive holdings included most of Hudson County and were part of the Pavonia, New Netherland settlement.
In pagan mythology, the peacock is considered to be a symbol of rebirth, much like the phoenix. For Saint Peter's, it is a reference to the closing and reopening of the college in the early 20th century.
At one point in the 1960s, live peacocks roamed the campus. Many institutions within the college derive their name from the peacock:
The school newspaper had been titled the Pauw Wow until April 2021, when it was renamed as the St. Peter's Tribune; Pauw's name was removed because of his involvement in "cruelty and oppression against Indigenous and African peoples".[19]
The literary magazine is titled the Pavan.
The school's yearbook is titled the Peacock Pie.
The drama society calls itself Argus Eyes, in reference to Argus "Panoptes", who, according to Greek mythology, had his 100 eyes preserved by Hera in the tail of the peacock.
One of the major dining facilities is named the Pavonia Room.
The O'Toole Library café is named Pavo Perk."
I celebrated St Patrick's Day by lining up the corned beef sandwiches and green beer to watch the start of the round of 32 Battlebots tournament. Forget March madness.
- Krumhorn
Love the stuck ball link!
Here in Tennessee we were so insulted by the 3 seed placement after having beat 2nd seed Kentucky for the SEC Championship that we were thrilled that St. Peter's won. And in overtime!
Not that I'm a big sports fan, but I'm currently staying with a 89 year old aunt who just had a TIA. We had to get anxiety meds because the SEC Championship so stressed her.
They're the only team wearing those dumbass Black Lives Matter shirts.
That was enough for me to root for Kentucky for the first time in my life.
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