Maryland may have won the NCAA Tournament last year, but I think all 65 teams have a shot this year. I will *prove* this point by connecting all 65 teams while mentioning Tulsa three times (counting this one) for no good reason. It’s a huge, random Kevin-Bacon-party-game special.
Let’s start with South Carolina State. Why? Well, for one thing, it is close to Fort Wagner, S.C., which is nowhere near Wagner University. Recently- injured Cleveland Cavaliers guard Dajuan Wagner played for Memphis last year, but he followed the example of the Cincinnati Bearcats by not graduating. Brigham Young graduates quite a few players that also take part in Mormon missions, which apparently take place all over the world – including Oregon, where they can cheer for Luke Ridnour and the Pac-10 Tournament Champion Ducks. But the work of the Mormon church can be undermined by all sorts of evil forces, including the Arizona State Sun Devils, the Duke Blue Devils and the one and only Dukie Mouth Devil – Dick Vitale, who runs a cancer foundation for the late, great North Carolina State coach Jimmy Valvano.
The state of North Carolina has no motto, but it does have two other schools in the field, UNC-Wilmington and UNC-Ashville, the latter of which will face Texas Southern in the play-in game for the right to compete with No. 1-seed Texas. The Longhorns’ alumni association boasts a Heisman Trophy- winning running back (Ricky Williams) just like Pittsburgh (Tony Dorsett) and Auburn (Bo Jackson).
Bo knows baseball, football and a myriad of other things, but while watching at home, he doesn’t have the first clue who committed murder in the made-for-TV mystery movie. But the rest of us, especially those not educated in Alabama, know that the butler did it.
Speaking of Butlers, Mark Butler is the director of football operations at Tulsa, where the Golden Hurricanes go to school thousands of miles from the nearest ocean, much like Colorado State University, which was the first school in the world to offer an MBA degree over cable television. One of cable TV’s most visible redheaded hippies, Bill Walton, has a son that plays for Lute Olsen at Arizona, a state with a pro football team called the Cardinals.
The Cardinals of Louisville may or may not set up a nest in the Wake Forest, but either way, the Demon Deacons rely on Lithuanian forward Vytautas Danelius. Another former Soviet state, Estonia, boasts no players in Division I basketball. However, the Estonian word that means “anticipation of thunder-filled night,” Koue