It's the Illinois State v. Pittsburgh Mathlympics!

I tell ya', these Euro Trips (Scotty doesn't know!) are all the rage nowadays. First Utah, then Pittsburgh, and now...Sharon Dingman and her Illinois! State! Redbirds!

(And as we now all know, this means that either a) Coach Dingman wants to enrich her players' lives or b) as stated in the Anderson-Salvo Theorem, Dingman's trying to get two starters to vamoose.)

Illinois State seems to be following the same path blazed by Beerman's Panthers. Rising senior Kristin Dziubla reports on the team's arrival in Prague, which is where the Panthers also visited early in their trip. There's no mention of rowdy high schoolers protesting something, but she does mention climbing St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle, JUST LIKE THE PANTHERS DID. It's like that castle is a tourist attraction or something...

After climbing about 285 steps up the winding staircase, we made it (out of breath and somewhat dizzy!) to the top.

Wait a cotton-pickin' second: How many steps did Pitt's numerologist Melissa Stadelman say there were?

This narrow staircase was not easy to climb, however, with there being a total of 287 steps. Melissa Stadelman even counted them all!

So, the question is, who has the better math skills? Kristin Dziubla, 6'1 junior middle, a business administration major from Elgin, Ill., or Melissa Stadelman, 5'11" redshirt freshman outside hitter with an undeclared major from Pittsburgh?

After consulting a number of travel guides, including czech-travel-guide.com, the answer is...

Melissa Stadelman! Apparently 287 is the correct number of steps within Prague Castle's St. Vitus Cathedral!