Marquette's Ticket Office: Wait Some More!

ESPN's Joe Lunardi has his Bracketology out, and one fun activity Pun City always likes to do is see what apparel this blog has that would be relevant with each of the projected seeds. Here's this week's sample:

1 Seeds:
Memphis - Hat, conference shirt, tiger paw
Tennessee - Nothing
Kansas - NCAA tournament shirt
North Carolina - Shirt, hat, wristbands

2:
Washington State - Shirt, hat, conference shirt
UCLA - 2 Hats, conference shirt
Georgetown - Hat, conference shirt
Duke - Hat, jersey, shooting shirt, wristbands

3:
Indiana - Jersey, conference shirt, warmup pants
Michigan State - Hat, conference shirt
Texas - NCAA tournament shirt
Wisconsin - 20 shirts, 14 hats, jersey, warmup pants, wristbands, shorts, sportcoat, conference shirt, NCAA tournament shirt

4:
Pittsburgh - NCAA tournament shirt, conference shirt
Marquette - 12 shirts, 8 hats, conference shirt
Stanford - Conference shirt
Drake - Conference shirt

5:
Vanderbilt - Nothing
Butler - Conference shirt
Mississippi - Nothing
Dayton - Jersey, hat, conference shirt

6:
Xavier - Hat, conference shirt
St. Mary's - Nothing
Gonzaga - Hat
Baylor - Nothing

7:
Notre Dame - 2 shirts, 1 hat, conference shirt
Kansas State - Nothing
Clemson - Nothing
West Virginia - NCAA tournament shirt

8:
Texas A&M - Nothing
Arizona - Hat, conference shirt
Villanova - Conference shirt
Arizona State - Conference shirt

9:
Oregon - Conference shirt
Purdue - Shirt
Rhode Island - Conference shirt
Massachusetts - Conference shirt

10:
Boston College - NCAA tournament shirt
Providence - Conference shirt
Illinois State - Conference shirt
Mississippi State - Nothing

11:
Ohio State - Shirt, jersey, hat, shorts, conference shirt
Miami - Wristbands
Cleveland State - Conference shirt
South Alabama - Conference shirt

12:
Akron - Nothing (Although, Pun City has tickets for their Bracket Buster game 2/23, so this may change)
San Diego State - Nothing
Connecticut - Conference shirt
Louisville - Hat, conference shirt

13:
Davidson - Nothing
Virginia Commonwealth - Shirt, conference shirt
Oral Roberts - Conference shirt
Siena - Nothing

14:
Stephen F. Austin - Nothing
Cal State Northridge - Hat, conference shirt
Utah State - Conference shirt
UNC Asheville - Nothing

15:
Austin Peay - Hat, conference shirt
Northern Arizona - Nothing
Cornell - Nothing
Hampton - Conference shirt

16:
Lafayette - Nothing
Quinnipiac - Nothing
Jacksonville - Conference shirt
Binghamton - Nothing
Southern - Nothing

So far, 44 of 65 teams covered. Assuming that the above listing is the exact field that ends up happening, there is still a chance Pun City's apparel options would be a better fit come tournament time. As noted above, there's a good chance Pun City would pick up some Akron swag in February. Additionally, Pun City's March road trip will either be to New York for the Big East tournament or out west for the West Coast Conference and Mountain West Conference tournaments.

If this blog heads west, there is a 99% chance it would pick up at least a conference shirt from each tournament. This would bring relevance to the San Diego State entry. Additionally, it would cover for any other bids the MWC or WCC picked up. (St. Mary's would be accounted for from the WCC as well).

Incidentally, Pun City actually has a shirt depicting all Big East teams already, so a New York trip would not help the cause of adding relevance to extra tournament teams. It would still be a sweet trip though.

On the trip note, this blog knows a few of you are out there wondering where Pun City will be going. It's still up in the air unfortunately, but could be resolved as early as tomorrow.

The Marquette ticket office just received the number of tickets they have been allotted from the Big East for the tournament, and tomorrow they hope to determine which applicants receive their tickets. Pun City would put its chances at around 50-50 right now. The unfortunate part of this situation is that this blog has repeatedly had its hopes driven upward only to find out another delay was going on.

The MU ticket office first stated that they would know in November who would be receiving tickets. This changed to December, then January. At the start of January, they said "a couple weeks, maybe 3." It has indeed become 3 weeks, and last week one representative told Pun City that it would be determined by Wednesday, and another said it would be determined on Monday. Well, obviously Monday was wrong. Today's rep said they were "hoping to get that figured out tomorrow," so that doesn't even guarantee a Wednesday answer. This blog is hoping that a response is delivered by Friday at the latest, this is beyond ridiculous as far as having to plan a trip on short notice. Luckily some of the tournament days coincided, but the disparate locales make for no other consolidation of trip resources (rental car, hotel, flight) being possible. It's a tough situation, there's a good chance Pun City won't order Big East tickets for a while now, so hopefully this blog wins this year and is able to check the Big East off of the list.

Pun City's Celebrity Encounters and Strange But True Confessions

This blog is headed to the Weird Al Yankovic show at Summerfest tomorrow, so Pun City figured it would put one up a day early. Two sources of inspiration here: one was a MySpace "survey" asking for 10 random facts about you. The other was an article/post on si.com where they were talking about encounters with famous people, in particular athletes. Without further ado:

10. This blog enjoys the music of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Hilary Duff. It's good stuff, have a listen some time.

9. Pun City has never exceeded 5 dates with the same girl. This might be common in the blogging community, but them's the breaks.

8. This blog sometimes prefers taking statistics to actually playing video games. Playing is often the means to the end of the statistics.

7. While working for Enterprise Rent-A-Car for two summers, this blog found over $20.00 in change in the rental cars each summer.

6. This blog was once accosted by a man playing church league softball for calling a ball that had hit the plate a strike. All balls that hit the plate are strikes. The ball clearly had hit the plate. This blog was a volunteer umpire pressed into duty 2 minutes before the game. Key words here: volunteer, accosted, and church league.

5. This blog's most recent video gaming system is Playstation 1. The NES and SNES are good enough for now. But this blog is waiting until they create a system where the graphics are better than real life.

4. Pun City has a hat and shirt rotation that matches up 223 hats with 223 shirts. This blog grabs the next one up in the closet every day, as detailed here. On Sunday, a Wisconsin Basketball shirt came up in the order. This was notable in that Pun City was headed to Marquette basketball season ticket renewal. After arriving in full Wisconsin regalia, the MU workers told this blog "You are about 90 miles east of where you need to be....." "Argh! It's, like, blinding! Ahh! Red shoes!" Once the initial pleasantries were dispensed, Pun City had a seat and awaited its appointment time. Minutes later, a female worker emerged from the back with a Marquette t-shirt. She presented it to Pun City, saying "We're going to ask that you wear this in to the appointment, because otherwise they're going to rip you to shreds in there." This blog graciously obliged, now knowing that the t-shirt order is self-sustaining.

3. Pun City doesn't eat breakfast. In college, this blog found out that it was a huge waste of time. It also noticed that gaining weight is easier when you eat breakfast. Pun City is a firm believer that breakfast is the least important meal of the day.

2. Pun City has attended 14 of 30 NCAA men's basketball conference tournaments in the last 4 years. The goal is to get to all 30 in Pun City's lifetime.

1. Pun City was half of the first (and still only) doubles victory for Grafton tennis at the WIAA state tournament.

Athletic encounters:

This blog has had brief encounters with quite a few athletes and coaches in its time. This blog didn't play against any famous athletes head-to-head, but was able to meet a few for a few minutes.

1. Homer and Bryce Drew - Both were at the Mid-Contenent Conference tournament in Tulsa, OK, watching Valparaiso's women play and this blog approached them for autographs. Homer was very gracious and amiable, every bit the gentleman that his public image projects. Bryce was on his cell phone but was happy to sign and as nice as you can be while talking on a cell phone yet still addressing the autograph seeker.

2. Marcus Allen - Kansas City Chiefs training camp in River Falls, WI. One year Pun City's brother and this blog asked him for an autograph just as he had refused a group of about 15 regular autograph hounds. In fairness to them, he said he couldn't, although he seemed to wish that he hadn't turned down the group and probably wouldn't have if he had known we were there. The next year, this blog was able to get his autograph. Pretty nice guy.

3. Joe Montana - Also Chiefs training camp. Very elusive, would never sign for any more than the bare minimum it took for him to get from his dorm into the meal hall. This blog realizes he had a lot of demand for his time, but that was a little poor.

4. Jim Larranaga - Cinderella George Mason's head coach, at the CAA tournament in Richmond, VA. He was in a concourse watching a game prior to GMU's matchup later in the day. This blog handed him a jersey and asked for his autograph. He nodded and signed in blue on the green part of the jersey, thus obscuring the autograph. (This blog had hoped he'd sign on the white number, but oh well). A very brief encounter, for as affable as he seems in the media, he came across as very introverted during this particular meeting.

5. Shane Battier - Hotel lobby in Indianapolis, IN during the 2000 Final Four. Duke was not in the Final Four, he had just completed his junior season. This blog believes he was in town for a summit on collegiate athletics as a student-athlete representative and probably as an NABC All-Region team rep. The hotel was hosting a pep rally for Wisconsin's fans. He had to get through the crowd to get to his destination, and was working the crowd very well, giving high fives and saying something to the effect of "Alright Wisconsin! Go get 'em!" He seemed pretty cool to be doing that when other student-athletes (like Brian Cardinal and to a lesser extent Marcus Fizer) and head coaches (like Steve Fisher and especially Bob Huggins) just shuffled past trying to avoid all fans. Cool guy, Pun City's a fan.