Sweet 16 Pants Party: Georgetown Vs. Vanderbilt

Georgetown Hoyas (29-7) vs. Vanderbilt Commodores (22-11) When: 7:27 p.m. ET Where: East Rutherford, N.J.

GEORGETOWN

1. Patrick Ewing Jr. will dunk on you. The kid teammates call "Trixie" (ask Wikipedia, not me) plays above the rim, as evidenced by his reverse and-one jam in the final minute of Georgetown's win over BC. Hoya heavy Ted Leonsis was hip to this as early as last week, as was anyone in attendance at Indiana Midnight Madness 2003.

2. Roy Hibbert is no Ostertag Przybilla. Last week I wrote "that NBADraft.net still has Greg Ostertag as Hibbert's player comparison, which is a crime to draftniks everywhere." Well, they've updated it since then, perhaps taking the 7'2", 278-lb. center's 17-and-12 vs. BC into account. The new comparison? Joel "The Vanilla Gorilla" Przybilla. No wonder DraftExpress.com is on the rise. 3. JT III has the starting lineup of a champ. Hibbert is one of the nation's best big men. Jeff Green is the Big East's Player of the Year. DaJuan Summers is a 6'8" freshman forward who the aforementioned NBADraft.net has going No. 10 overall in '08 (grain of salt). Guard Jonathan Wallace shoots 50 percent from the floor, 48 percent from three and 87 percent from the line, and backcourt mate Jessie Sapp averaged 14 points through the first two rounds of the Tournament. Hoya Saxa! — Jamie Mottram

VANDERBILT

1. Basset Hounds! Officially the mascot of Vanderbilt is the Commodores, named after Cornelius Vanderbilt's alleged exploits at sea. Unofficially, however, the true mascot of Vanderbilt will always be George the basset hound. Brought to campus by student Toby Wilt in the early 1960s, George gained fame when, at a Vanderbilt-Tennessee football tilt on November 28, 1964, he chased UT's mascot horse out of the stadium, sending the crowd into a frenzy, and Vanderbilt to a 7-0 victory. From that point on, George had front row seats at all basketball and football games. He was later evicted from the Sigma Chi house, leading to a groundswell movement across campus to build a split-level doghouse for George. Sadly, plans for a $2,000 doggie duplex became a lightning rod issue across after the student press deemed it excessive, until it was settled when an anonymous donor gave George a new home gratis. George passed away in 1966 after chasing an ice delivery truck and was given a hero's funeral and burial. To date, he remains interred just north of Dudley Field.

2. They Stole From Duke. Until Jay Cutler's meteoric success as Broncos QB and object of Mel Kiper's undying affection, and with apologies to Will Perdue, Joey Cora and Corey Chavous, possibly the most famous Vandy athlete was the legendary Billy McCaffrey, whose 3-pointers catapulted Duke to its national title in 1991, before leaving for the greener pastures of Vandy, where he lead the team in scoring for two seasons. After playing professionally in Italy, Germany and South East Melbourne, McCaffrey joined his former Vanderbilt coach Jan van Brenda Kolff at St. Bonaventure as an assistant coach in 2001, and was named interim head coach following van Brenda Kolff's resignation in 2003 ... but never coached a game. McCaffrey, who now is an assistant at Maine, has a record of 0-0 as a college head coach, exactly the same as everyone reading this site.

3. More Dixie Stuff. Controversy abounded on the Vanderbilt campus in 2002, when in a showing of sensitivity and common sense, the University decided to rename the dorm Confederate Memorial Hall to simply Memorial Hall. What seemed like a straightforward enough change became immensely more complicated when the United Daughters of the Confederacy launched a vigorous protest to the change, as they had paid for the initial construction as a tribute to fallen rebels. The UDC sued to stop the name change, and though the action was dismissed initially, on appeal, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that the name had to stay on the building's stone fa ade or damages were owed to the UDC, which seem rather difficult to calculate. The UDC reacted by noting "it's a victory for the entire South." To date, the name has been changed everywhere but the stone enscription on the building. — Angelo Grasso

First Three Georgetown Tidbits [Deadspin] First Three Vanderbilt Tidbits [Deadspin]