They make very little sense, which is a huge part of their appeal, and the attacks on the opposing schools and their moonshine making abilities are nothing if not inspired. And yes, the teams they've been teasing have made a habit of pounding A&M on the field the last few Saturdays, but that only makes the irony more delicious. Maybe their luck with incest puppet jokes will change this week against Iowa State. After all, they are correct that Ames is very boring.

• AggieReport.com videos [YouTube]
• AggieReport.com [Aggie Report]

BRIGHAM YOUNG COUGARS

1. My Left Foot. BYU lost to UNLV for the second straight year in the Mountain West championship game, but one has to wonder if things would have been different had the Cougars' 6-foot-11 Vuk Ivanovic still been on the roster. Ivanovic, a native of Serbia and Montenegro, broke his foot during practice in January. But one wonders why he just didn't heal himself, being that he's a genetics and biotechnology major. Also, the senior lists his hobbies as Formula 1 Racing, chess, ping-pong and playing the piano; you know, the typical stuff.

2. On Any Given Sunday. As far as the NCAA is concerned, BYU is rather high maintenance. They refuse to let their athletic teams play on Sunday; which would have been a conflict in the NCAA basketball tournament in 2003, had the Cougars reached the Elite Eight. Fortunately, they never made it. Also, the university gets special dispensation from the NCAA due to their athletes' service on LDS missions (typically two years), which do not count against the maximum four years of college eligibility. As a result, BYU players tend to be older than average, and many are already married with families.

3. Black Power! Sophomore guard Jonathan Tavernari got his start playing basketball from his mom, who is a basketball coach in Brazil ... 6-foot-11 sophomore center Chris Miles, who recently returned from an LDS mission, was recruited out of high school by Texas Tech. But for some reason he thought he might be uncomfortable playing for Bobby Knight ... according to his bio, junior guard Lamont Morgan Jr. "is active in the Black Student Union." Who knew? ... senior guard Ben Murdock served his LDS mission in Honolulu, Hawai'i. Who do you have to know to get that gig? — Rick Chandler

TEXAS A&M AGGIES

1. Battle of the Brazos. Texas A&M's rivalry with Baylor is called "The Battle of the Brazos," as the team's campuses sit 90 miles apart, near the Brazos River. The teams have been playing each other since 1914, but no year has been as eventful as this one. The fun started with a five-overtime thriller in College Station, with Baylor emerging with a 116-110 victory. The game wasn't shown on TV, but ESPN Classic later rebroadcast it using footage from A&M's in-arena cameras and
audio from the radio broadcast. In the rematch, Baylor fans ended the game by throwing plastic soda bottles onto the floor after the Aggies' Donald Sloan capped a 71-57 blowout with an off-the-glass dunk dubbed by Aggie fans as "The Baptism."

2. First Half Good, Second Half Not So Much. Few teams have had the rollercoaster season that A&M has. The first half of the season couldn't have gone better, as a 15-1 start took them to the edge of the Top 10. Then came a three-game losing streak and a 7-8 record over final two months. Even within that stretch, the Aggies decided to to things in a big way, including a pair of 27-point losses and a 44-point win.

3. Not Exactly "Win One For The Gipper.". Aggies Coach Mark Turgeon may have gotten an early sense that his team was headed for trouble down the stretch. After two straight losses in January and just prior to the five-overtime bonk to Baylor, Turgeon let it fly: "I know what I'm doing. Have I gotten the most out of my team the last two games? No. But I know no matter what I do, if we win, (former coach Billy) Gillispie's getting the credit, and if we lose, it's my fault. I'm in a no-flippin-win situation this year, and that puts me in a bad mood." The result? Seven more wins from January to March, and losing five of its final seven. — Jeff Beckham

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2. First Half Good, Second Half Not So Much. Few teams have had the rollercoaster season that A&M has. The first half of the season couldn't have gone better, as a 15-1 start took them to the edge of
the Top 10. Then came a three-game losing streak and a 7-8 record over final two months. Even within that stretch, the Aggies decided to to things in a big way, including a pair of 27-point losses and a
44-point win.

3. Not Exactly "Win One For The Gipper.. Aggies Coach Mark Turgeon may have gotten an early sense that his team was headed for trouble down the stretch. After two straight losses in January and just prior to the five-overtime bonk to Baylor, Turgeon let it fly: "I know what I'm doing. Have I gotten the most out of my team the last two games? No. But I know no matter what I do, if we win, (former coach Billy)
Gillispie's getting the credit, and if we lose, it's my fault. I'm in a no-flippin-win situation this year, and that puts me in a bad mood." The result? Seven more wins from January to March, and losing five of
its final seven. — Jeff Beckham

"Joe Paterno's on his death bed! And someone needs to find him a casket!" the unidentified yell leader screamed over a microphone, first to gasps and then thunderous boos from the Penn State fans.

Oops. Now everyone's in an uproar, and the cheerleader in question was sent home. I just saw the video, and honestly, the most offensive part was the long, unfunny story leading up to Paterno quote. What was that? Texas A&M, you have just been downgraded to a Community College.

Meanwhile, over at the PennLive message board, we have this: "On a side note, I'm just curious to how any of the PSU alumni and fans feel about the students at your school that dressed up as massacred VT students for Halloween." — AggieDoctor

Yell Leader: Find Paterno A Casket [The Wizard Of Odds]

This shirt is the hot commodity for Texas Tech fans looking to rattle Texas A&M during their visit to Lubbock this Saturday. The front of the shirt simply says "Vick 'Em," and you're looking at the back of the shirt.

We think this would work better if, you know, it were the Texas A&M Bulldogs, or the Texas A&M Fightin' Puppies. We'll wait for someone playing Georgia to do that one; are there photoshops of someone electrocuting Uga?

Morning Coffee Is Salivating For Aggie Sanctimony [Burnt Orange Nation]

It would be safe to say that Texas A&M fans aren't handling the loss of Billy Gillespie to Kentucky very well.

(expletive deleted) [The 12th ManChild]
From One Billy To Another [Deadspin]

Gillespie is a notorious loner, and though he might have been able to pull that off in Aggie country, we imagine we'll be stalked wherever he goes in Lexington.

And we imagine the coaching search to fill the spot at Texas A&M will have considerably less fanfare. But just in case ... get your flight trackers ready!

Wildcats To Introduce Gillespie [ESPN]
Billy Gillespie In At UK [My Old Kentucky Home]
Somewhere There's A Little Dot That Looks Like Bob Huggins [Deadspin]

MEMPHIS

1. Skeletons From The Closet. The farthest Memphis has ever advanced in the NCAA Tournament was the 1973 championship game, in which UCLA's Bill Walton annihilated the Tigers with 44 points on 21-of-22 shooting. We also seemed to remember Memphis coach John Calipari having some tournament success while coaching at UMass, but we can't find any record of it. Thoughts on that, Marcus Camby? You were playing for Coach Cal back then, weren't you?

2. Mister, If You Don't Shut Up, We're Going To Kick One Hundred Percent Of Your Ass!. The University of Memphis was, until 1994, known as Memphis State. The university made the name change to bring a little gravitas and respect to an institution that had been slagged as "Tiger High." And so when Memphis fans see the continuing disrespect heaped upon their Tigers, well, it makes 'em mad enough to steal Dad's car, trench a few lawns and TP a few trees, is what it does.

3. (Don't) Sweep The Leg. The Bluff City's eyes are on the ankle of Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis' leading scorer, who sprained the joint with eight minutes left in the Tigers' Sunday afternoon victory over Nevada. It's unclear how ready CDR will be to play, but earlier this week Calipari compared Douglas-Roberts to fellow (ex-) Tiger Kirk Gibson, who hobbled off the bench to smack a dramatic game-ending homer for Los Angeles in the 1988 World Series. So if the Tigers draw the Oakland A's in the Elite Eight, Memphis should be golden. — Jay Busbee

TEXAS A&M

1. Good Times. The Aggies are in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1980 and the second time ever despite the best efforts of Becca Mann and the Louisville Cardinals. No really, thank you Edgar Sosa for a great game, your two missed free throws and your bonehead, freshman-mistake, missed NBA 3-pointer that would have won the game even though you were only down by one point. A&M better shell out the dough for Billy Clyde Gillispie unless they want to wait another 27 years to make it back this far. They also might want to go ahead and start recruiting Acie Law V, even though he has yet to be conceived (as far as we know anyways).

2. Please Forgive Me, Captain Kirk. Defensive specialist Dominique Kirk had two options coming out of Dallas Bryan Adams High: Texas A&M or Liberty University. What seemed like a reach at the time has turned out to be quite a hit as of late. Kirk scored 16 against Penn and followed it up with a career high 21 against Louisville to push his season average to just over seven points per game. He has shown that he can hit threes, drive to the bucket and, more important, be a fearless leader for the Aggies when it matters most, which makes it at least a little bit easier to stomach next year's departure of Captain Clutch.

3. Beer, Barbeque and Blondes. It is rumored around College Station that coach Billy Gillispie is only interested in things that begin with the letter B. Number one of course is basketball, but the others might surprise you. A known loner, Billy has been seen numerous times at local establishments kicking back a few by himself, though welcoming all fans who stop to say hello. He also frequents a local barbeque joint, again alone, to have a meal and look over scouting reports, which he leaves on the table after reading. Also, according to a popular Aggie message board, he has been seen all over town with the lovely Miss Erin Andrews. We're just going to assume that this is only a rumor to keep our hopes alive. — Mitch Martin

First Three Memphis Tidbits [Deadspin]
First Three Texas A&M Tidbits [Deadspin]

TEXAS A&M AGGIES

1. Billy Gillispie Might Have Been A Good Hire. In their first eight seasons in the Big 12, the Aggies won 25 conference games and lost 103. For you math whizzes out there, that equates to 19.5 percent. In the past three years, they've won 31 conference games (64.6 percent). For a perspective of how far things have come in College Station, just two years ago the Aggies got so excited about making the NIT that they had T-shirts made for the occasion. I can't wait to see this year's NIT shirt design for UConn and Oklahoma State.

2. Acie Law Can Use Both of His Hands. Born righthanded, probable All-American point guard Acie Law learned to use his left hand to dribble and shoot after breaking his right arm three times. I'm sure he didn't teach himself how to do anything else left handed. Nope, no way ... not a 15-year-old high school kid. Speaking of Law, it's actually Law IV as you will see on the back of his jersey. You may ask "why would one include that on their jersey?" Well, Acie has an answer for you. "It's my name. I'm Acie Law the fourth. When I first got to A&M I wanted to put my whole name on there, and that's what it is." Well OK then. I guess that clears it up.

3. Biggy Smalls. Junior forward Joe Jones, whose name is oddly enough pronounced similar to rapper Mike Jones, hails from the mighty metropolis of Normangee, Texas, population 719. In fact, Jones happens to be dubbed the "Pride of Normangee." Strangely enough, before the emergence of Mr. Jones, Normangee was only known for one thing: tractors. So now when Jim Nantz busts out with "Who? Joe Jooooones" during the Final Four, you'll know it all started out with 718 other people and some tractors. Billy Gillispie has Jones beat though. His hometown of Graford, Texas has a population of 578, or 141 fewer than Normangee. Bryan-College Station, population 192,603, must be like NYC to these guys. — Mitch Martin

PENNSYLVANIA QUAKERS

FIVE REASONS TO PICK THE PENN QUAKERS AS YOUR SLEEPER

1. Two-time conference player of the year Ibrahim Jaaber led the Ivy League in steals and assists and was second in scoring to teammate Mark Zoller. Jaaber finishes his Penn career as the all-time Ivy League leader in steals, and is the kind of poised, experienced guard to whom commentators love to point at tournament time. He also has a fantastic name.

2. In last year's tournament, 15 seed Penn led 2 seed Texas at the half before coming up short, 60-52. Widely forecast as a 14 seed this year, the Quakers might face an overachieving 3 seed like Southern Illinois or Washington State - good as they are, not teams that put fear into the hearts of small-college players.

3. Surprising as it may be, Penn has a Final Four pedigree; the Quaker team led by Tony Price beat four higher-seeded teams in a Cinderella run to the 1979 Final Four. The Quakers were defeated by Magic Johnson's Michigan State Spartans, the eventual champions.

4. In one of their best games this season, the Quakers defeated Drexel, a tourney hopeful with a 39 RPI and wins against Syracuse, Villanova, and Creighton.

5. As much as people laugh at the team name, the actual Quakers are kind of awesome. Prominent in the abolition and anti-war movements for centuries, the Religious Society of Friends is a religion that's small in number (approximately 350,000 around the world) but hugely respected by those who value stubborn adherence to a moral code. Ironically for a group that opposes violence, Quakers sure do stick to their guns.

FIVE REASONS NOT TO PICK THE PENN QUAKERS AS YOUR SLEEPER

1. Aside from the Drexel win, Penn hasn't beat anyone: they lost to Syracuse, Villanova, UTEP, Seton Hall, and St. Joe's. Most damningly, they lost to UNC - perhaps the exact caliber of team Penn might meet in round one - by a brutal 102-64 score.

2. William Henry Harrison, Penn alumnus, is quite possibly the lamest US President ever: He developed pneumonia shortly after his two-hour Inaugural Address, delivered in the wind and rain and died 30 days into office.

3. While many praise the Ivy League for being the only conference to award its automatic NCAA tournament bid to the regular-season champion rather than a conference tournament winner, it also means that the Ivy League champ is the only team to make it to March Madness with no experience in a one-and-done tourney.

4. Though they're a popular Cinderella pick in office pools nationwide thanks to their...uh... fundamentally sound basketball, the Ivy League hasn't won a tournament game since 1998, when 5 seed Princeton defeated UNLV.

5. This guy:

— Dan Kois

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Deadspin Printable Bracket [PDF]
Complete NCAA Tournament Schedule

2. Acie Law Can Use Both of His Hands. Born righthanded, probable All-American point guard Acie Law learned to use his left hand to dribble and shoot after breaking his right arm three times. I'm sure he didn't teach himself how to do anything else left handed. Nope, no way ... not a 15-year-old high school kid. Speaking of Law, it's actually Law IV as you will see on the back of his jersey. You may ask "why would one include that on their jersey?" Well, Acie has an answer for you. "It's my name. I'm Acie Law the fourth. When I first got to A&M I wanted to put my whole name on there, and that's what it is." Well OK then. I guess that clears it up.

3. Biggy Smalls. Junior forward Joe Jones, whose name is oddly enough pronounced similar to rapper Mike Jones, hails from the mighty metropolis of Normangee, Texas, population 719. In fact, Jones happens to be dubbed the "Pride of Normangee." Strangely enough, before the emergence of Mr. Jones, Normangee was only known for one thing: tractors. So now when Jim Nantz busts out with "Who? Joe Jooooones" during the Final Four, you'll know it all started out with 718 other people and some tractors. Billy Gillispie has Jones beat though. His hometown of Graford, Texas has a population of 578, or 141 fewer than Normangee. Bryan-College Station, population 192,603, must be like NYC to these guys. — Mitch Martin

This video from last night's thrilling Texas A&M-Texas game is awfully shaky and, oh yeah, shot off a television, but it's still worth it, for one of the weirder moments of teammate camaraderie we've seen in a while.

As pointed out by One More Dying Quail, late in the second overtime, Texas freshman Damion Jones James, in an attempt to fire up fellow Longhorn A.J. Abrams, smacks him on the ass exceptionally hard. So hard, in fact, that Abrams juts forward and then turns around, ready to beat the ass of whoever just smacked him.

We understand that the ass slap is a fundamental part of any team's repertoire — though we haven't the foggiest idea why — but this is the first time we've ever seen it nearly slide into the sadomasochistic.

Damion Jones Is One Odd Duck [One More Dying Quail]

Well, maybe a little bit of a secret. Turns out that Gates has been posting on the TexAgs forum as "ranger65" over the last four years, tuning in and piping up on all matters Aggie football. Last night he came out of the message board closet.

Folks, as I just posted on another thread, it is time for true confessions as I prepare to depart Aggieland. Ranger 65 is Dr. Gates ('65 because that is my college class and Ranger because he's buried in my front yard). I have enjoyed reading you all for the past four and a half years — well, at least most of you. You are all hard core Aggies, and I have listened and paid more attention to you than you might imagine. Good luck to all of you in the future. Bob Gates

The administrators of the site did confirm it was Gates, who will no longer be posting on the site, considering, well, he has an unmitigated global disaster to deal with. Fun while it lasted, though!

Dr. Gates Breaks Cover [TexAgs.com]

They do some unusual things involving football down there in Texas, but this strange cheering tradition from the Texas A&M Aggie Corps might very well be the weirdest. We don't have the foggiest idea what's going on there, and we're not sure we want to know.

Aggies Getting Their Squeeze On [Bevo Sports]

(They're having all kinds of fun with this at EDSBS.)

One day thousands of years from now, when a superior alien intelligence stumbles upon the remains of our long-extinct civilization, we only pray that they don't come across this video. Just our luck it will be the only thing that survives, and we don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about us. We blame Burnt Orange Nation, which asks the musical question: "What kind of a douchebag puts his seat belt on for a freaking rap video?" That really pretty much sums up what you are about to see. Just know that we will never look at Texas A&M the same way again. Not that we thought about them much before.

Oh, how we long for the innocent, carefree days of Li'l Ronnie.

Raise Up, BCS! [Burnt Orange Nation]

SYRACUSE

1. The Real Slim Shady. Tattooed Orange frosh Eric Devendorf was born in Bay City, Mich., about 115 miles north of Detroit. He guards the perimeter in Syracuse's standard 2-3 while talking trash, which draws comparisons to some other white guy from Motown. Growing up, players labeled the 6-foot-4 combo guard with the killer left hand as "Roundball Eminem," and after arriving at Syracuse students began calling Devendorf "8 Mile." Devendorf played prep ball at hoops factory Oak Hill Academy in Virginia and could have played at the Carrier Dome with fellow Oak Hill graduate Carmelo Anthony, had 'Melo elected to graduate.

2. Orange-Tainted Bias. If you thought Fox News Channel is guilty of media bias, think about the Orange-tainted media. Syracuse's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications churns out a plethora of sports journalists. Marv Albert? YES! Bob Costas won't give you tidbits about various countries during the Olympics broadcasts, but he doesn t have a problem with chatting about his time at the 'Cuse. Sean McDonough, Mike Tirico even Graham Bensinger - the teenage student mastermind behind the infamous T.O. interview - are among those who bleed Orange. And that's only the on-air "talent."

3. "I Think 'D.C.' Means 'Disturbed Child.'" That's what Charles Barkley said of former Syracuse star Derrick Coleman. Booze may have prevented D.C. from fulfilling his potential in the NBA, as the No. 1 draft by the Nets in 1990, but the retired Coleman has gone on to start a hip hop label called OnPoint Recordings. Coleman wore the fabled No. 44, only reserved for select Syracuse athletes, including legendary running backs Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and more recently John Wallace, who led the then-Orangemen to the Final Four in 1996. — Ashok Selvam

TEXAS A&M

1. Texas A&M Has No Cheerleaders. The Aggie Dictionary will inform you that the school has no cheerleaders, but they do have a dance team, none of whom are particularly good looking.

2. The Coach Is Dull. Head coach Billy Gillispie has his own Web site, where you can learn such things as "Billy Gillispie's website is the most boring, useless place on Earth."

3. The Elephant Walk. By consulting the Aggie Dictionary again, we learned that graduating A&M seniors do something called The Elephant Walk:

"Marks the transition of the graduating senior class handing down its role as leaders to the incoming senior class. The seniors wander through campus like old elephants that leave the herd to die. The seniors usefulness to the student body "dies" the day of Elephant Walk."

At Ohio State, where we went, people just got drunk. But then, we only made it to second quarter of freshman year, and our biggest accomplishment was throwing a mattress off the roof of our fraternity house. — The Cavalier

Deadspin Printable Bracket (PDF) (JPG version)
Join The Deadspin Pool!
NCAA Tournament First Round Schedule [Deadspin]
Complete Deadspin First Round Matchup Previews [Deadspin]

Cincinnati 78, #18 West Virginia 75. A big win for the Bearcats, who had to be on the... outskirts of an NCAA tournament bid. This win, along with an 8-8 record in the Big East, should put them back on the inskirts.

Indiana 69, Michigan 64. A lot of people saw this one as a play-in game... and Mike Davis's boys may have just played their way off the precipice. Four scorers in double figures for the Hoosiers.

#10 Illinois 75, #23 Michigan State 68. Michigan State is confusing. How do you have that lineup and still lose 10 games? And for that matter, how do you lose 10 games and stay in the Top 25?

Texas A&M 75, Texas Tech 59. Closing the season with 7 straight wins makes a reasonably strong case for Texas A&M's tournament inclusion. Losing their last four makes a reasonably strong case for Texas Tech just not being very good.

Charlotte 85, #6 George Washington 86. Impressive win for the Colonials. They're without Pops Mensah-Bonsu, they're taking Charlotte's best shot because the 49ers are playing for a tournament bid, and they still get the win.

Some love for today's conference tournament winners comes a little later.

That's Texas guard Daniel Gibson trying to guard Texas A&M's Acie Law during their game on Wednesday — and either it was a very good fake by Law, or Gibson just doesn't believe in the tyranny of underwear. Or both.

You can't quite see the whole picture in that tiny photo ... but never fear! The full-sized photo is after the jump. Oops.

(UPDATE: The paper says it's an optical illusion. We're still not convinced.)

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—--

Currently on Longhorn-centric blog BevoSports: Aggies forward Chris Walker lip synching "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" with two equally shirtless roommate. We don't know Aggies basketball well enough to be sure that's him, but it certainly looks like him.

So you know, there's nothing gay about this video, like, at all. We're so glad they didn't have webcams when we were in college; we're fairly certain there would be video of us screaming our face off to The Breeders' "Cannonball," and that would be a bad thing for everyone.

Chris Walker Makes A Bad Decision [BevoSports]
Chris Walker Bio [AggieAthletics]

Of course, the Aggies have legal trademarks on it, and have been doing it since 1922, so I guess they have a point. In a 1922 game against the #1 ranked team in the nation, Texas A&M had major injury problems and called a student down out of the stands to suit up. He did, and the Aggies pulled off the upset, although the student never got into the game. But he was there for his team, as all A&M students have been since. It's a very cute and sweet tradition.

I think the only fair thing to do here is to gather up all the Texas A&M fans in the world, and all the Seahawks fans, put them all in the same stadium, and let them fight to the death, until one fan base is completely exterminated. It would've made for great television on this odd week before the Super Bowl.

Finally it comes down to man kryptonite. The one thing that you ladies have that every man wants. Boobs. They don t have to be huge or fake. They just have to be there for us to say whoa you can almost see her whole boob.

Needless to say, Florida State is the university that consistently comes out on top in this have-a-feeling-it's-not-as-tongue-in-cheek-as-we'd-like-it-to-be "derby." Let us not forget, by the way, that football games are sometimes, you know, cold. This is why, say, no Northwestern fans made the cut. Among other reasons.

How To Dress Sexy For Football Games [Aggie Revolution] (Via BadJocks.com)