Mark Macon Looks Like Xzibit

Good evening Pun City readers - Let's get into some trip recapping.

First things first, this blog awoke at approximately 3:00 AM Central time in order to make a 5:45 AM flight. This was brutal given that this blog hadn't gotten to sleep until about 12:30.

(This site does recognize it was its own doing on the lack of sleep - retrieving a laptop from Madison at 10:00 PM and scheduling a flight early Friday instead of late Thursday were measures this blog took to keep some people relatively updated and keep this blog's costs lower)
The drive down featured a total of 8 cars on this blog's side of the freeway, which was remarkably desolate for the Cedarburg-to-Milwaukee stretch of I-43 south.

The initial connecting flight to St. Louis was uneventful, other than being empty enough where this blog could occupy 2 seats and catch up on some sleep.

The St. Louis to Richmond flight was a little more interesting. First off, because this blog was wearing its George Mason jersey and got some minor ribbing from an Old Dominion fan heading to the same spot; and secondly because of the stewardess on the American Airlines flight.

Despite general stereotypes, stewardesses are virtually never hot. This blog surmises that of all female stewardesses, the average (on a scale of 10) is probably a 3 in the looks department. This blog has rarely seen higher than a 4.5. On this particular flight, however, there was a 20-year-old stewardess named Andrea. She was a solid 6.5. Sadly, that's the hottest real stewardess this blog has ever seen. This blog gleaned that she was on one of her first flights where she wasn't "tagging along" as a trainee, and she did a good job.

This blog is somewhat surprised that there aren't stewardess ratings out there, at least not widely-known ones. A precursory search found no ratings on attractiveness or service quality for stewardesses. This blog would think this could be a realistic site to set up, especially for frequent flyers. Pun City isn't sure how useful this information would be, but there's probably a market out there that would pay more to fly with more attractive and/or more friendly stewardesses.

The first game of the trip was to be Georgia State vs. William and Mary. Immediately, this blog noticed one of Georgia State's assistant coaches. The first thought was, "Whoa, that looks like Xzibit." The next thought was "Whoa, that looks like Mark Macon." Still not sure which one it was, you be the judge:

And from there, this blog saw an awesome game: this game to be exact. Fantastic finish, easily the best game of the trip. This blog then spoke to a local that claimed "half of William and Mary's crowd opens up a book to read at the half," and claimed that one WMU supporter "didn't mind they lost because half of the team has a Physics test on Monday." Amusing, though possibly embellished.

Here are some photos from the game:

Georgia State's student section. A little sparse. Possibly due to the long drive and the fact this game was at noon on a Thursday.

William and Mary's student section. Shouldn't have been this sparse since it was a fairly short drive.

Trip Wire

Good day, sorry for the long break and relative lack of Pun City updates during the trip, hopefully the majority of the audience was among those e-mailed from the road.

Fantastic trip in general, most likely the next few posts will include some road trip recaps.

The initial photo is this blog's view of Virginia Commonwealth's supporters rushing the floor after their CAA championship victory over George Mason. The Colonial Athletic Association, along with Richmond Coliseum staff, had a very cool policy on the floor rushing. Both before the game and during the 4-minute timeout in the 2nd half, an announcement was made stating (roughly): "We understand that the winning team's fans will want to join their team in celebrating on the floor. The CAA encourages fans to do so, but we ask that you please proceed to the floor in an orderly fashion and follow instructions from arena personnel."

Aside from the fairly polite message, the Coliseum staff removed temporary barriers in front of both student sections (as it was a close game) prior to the game ending. Fans rushed the floor and the images of this celebration were appropriately showcased on ESPN's SportsCenter and other media outlets. This is in stark contrast to the SEC's weak stance of fining schools when fans rush the floor. Basketball has not had any major floor-rushing injuries reported, and given that basketball arenas a) Are much smaller than football stadiums, meaning fewer people are logistically capable of rushing the floor; b) Many college arenas do not serve or restrict the sale of alcohol, leading to a more civil crowd than would otherwise be expected, and c) Basketball arenas rarely if ever have permanent barriers erected near the floor, which would seriously injure would-be floor rushers, this blog thinks that any anti-floor-rushing stance is overly cautious and ill-informed.

Picture two is the home of VCU's eventual first-round victim in the NCAA tournament, Duke University's Cameron Indoor Stadium. This blog got a chance to stop in while en route to the MEAC tournament in Raleigh, NC. Let this blog tell you, this place is a shrine. The building's exterior is fairly non-descript, no bigger than most of the classroom and dorm buildings around it, the inside is what counts. This blog, (in the interest of full disclosure a Duke fan since the early 1990s), was generally in awe the entire visit. The concourse, while small, is a great throwback to old bandbox-style gyms, but has been fantastically maintained, including detailed mosaics at every section entrance showing the Duke logo. Probably the biggest highlight for this blog (since it didn't really get to go into the seating bowl given that Howard University was having a closed practice) was the Duke Hall of Fame, which housed National Championship trophies, honored past greats, and displayed some great memorabilia, including Bobby Hurley's jersey and shoes. The Hall was within Cameron Indoor, so if you head down there it's a convenient combination. The last stop on this blog's trip was Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall, where the Atlantic 10 was playing their tournament. The building is on the National Historic Register, and has been renovated recently. The venue is typically used for theatre or concerts, so the giant stage provides a very cool looking backdrop when a basketball court is set up. This last shot was taken between games, and this blog would occasionally glance over at the huge screen during breaks in the action.

The trip was phenomenal, this blog assures you that more pictures are to follow, as well as day-by-day recaps and maybe a review here and there.

Also congratulations to Ohio State, which appears to be the only one of the teams this blog saw live (this season) to have advanced to the Sweet 16.

Live Cast is on the Air!

Good day, Pun City reporting live from the VCU lower library, they have some computers set up that you can use. This blog figured it would get up a post as long as it was using a computer that supported whatever programs Blogger requires. Here's some interesting (hopefully anyway) notes from the games.

- The CAA honored Georgia State alumnus Chavelo Holmes at the half of one of the games. They mentioned that he had outscored Michael Jordan in a game vs. UNC 20-16. Also of note was that he went from being a walk-on to the school's all-time leading scorer.

-Georgia State has Mark Macon as an assistant coach. He used to play at Temple and several stops in the NBA, including the Denver Nuggets. Unfortunately the B-Lab doesn't have the capability to open multiple windows, so you'll have to take this blog's word for it that he looks a lot like rapper Xzibit.

-A comment overheard in the "CAA Zone," sort of a de-facto milling lounge set up for non press members, was that William and Mary, known for rigourous academic standards, has half of their fans sit and open a book at halftime. This site heard the comment only after the only halftime where WMU played, but it's at least a good joke if not actually the case.

-William and Mary's sports teams are known as "The Tribe." Their dance team is known as "The Tribal Dancers."

-All fans seemed supportive of George Mason's Final 4 run last year, especially satisfied with the fact that they beat UNC, whose fans apparently rile a lot of these schools.

-The University of Delaware now carries a roster of only 7 players. (It's for a lot of reasons, voluntary defections, injuries, academic ineligibility). This caused an interesting, if not unexpected scenario toward the end of their 77-67 loss to Northeastern. With 2:06 remaining, they had a player foul out. This left them with 6 players, but 2 had 4 fouls and another had 3. Then needing to foul again with 1:57 left, one of the 4-foul players committed it, leaving them with only 5 players, 1 of which had 4 fouls, another having 3. This was about the only interesting part of what remained of the game, but this was Very interesting. What would they do if anyone else fouled out? Would it be a "Hoosiers" moment where they send out 4? Is that even legal in the NCAA? (If you actually know that, Pun City would like to know, this blog hasn't heard of that coming up). Alas, despite the 3-foul guy picking up another one, no one fouled out and we never came to what would have been really fascinating. (They didn't even have any managers ready to go, basically no contingency plan if it came to it).

Some selections from each band:

-Georgia State: "Rock & Roll Part 2", "Jump on it (That Apache/Tonto one)", Beyonce's "Crazy In Love," "Hot Stuff."

-William & Mary: "Proud Mary," whatever that "Jeremiah was a bullfrog.." song is.

-Delaware: Smashmouth's "Walkin' On The Sun," "Zoot Suit Riot," "SportsCenter theme," and Aretha Franklin's "Respect."

-Northeastern: Band not present. Lame.

-UNC-Wilmington: Whatever song Lil Romeo sampled to make "Girlfriend," (Jackson 5, not sure what the title is though), "Jungle Boogie," "Final Countdown," "Get Ready (Here I Come)", "Hey Baby" (the band version, not the No Doubt version unfortunately), "Rock & Roll Part 2."

-Towson - the best band at the tournament:
-"Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Disco Inferno," "Holiday" by Green Day, "CBS NCAA intro," "Eye of the tiger," (that was somewhat predictable given they're the Tigers), an awesome version of "Star Spangled Banner" with multiple harmonies and improvisational-like flourishes, "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Somebody Told Me," by the Killers.

-James Madison: "On Broadway," "I'm so Happy."

-George Mason: "Very Superstitious," "We Will Rock You," "Living On A Prayer," (a ton).

Those were the first day, this blog hopes to get some more info, but it's been standing upright throughout the whole post and needs to take a break.