Annie Sullivan has been replaced

Sure, Sullivan found a way to teach Helen Keller to communicate with the outside world, but could she have turned UC Irvine from a disaster to national champs in just five years?

I didn't think so. I mean, that whole converse-with-a-deaf-mute -blind-person-thing is nice and all, but it ain't a national title.

With a four-game win over IPFW and the National Title, Speraw is the new miracle worker on the block, and he'll hold that title until Kansas, Oregon State, Iowa, and NC State meet in the women's Final Four.

OK, sure, UC Irvine is in Orange County, the Great Petri Dish of Volleyball Talent, but UCI was not a big name school when Speraw took the job, it didn't have the history of the other MPSF schools. It was "that other school" the way Loyola Marymount was in L.A. when they had a program.

And a big tip of the hat to IPFW for not making the final an after-thought. They were legitimate contenders. If these guys had held on and won game four, anything could have happened in game five.

Un-IPFW-lievable! Holy Satellite Campus! Mastodon-tastic!

It's not like Morgan State beating Stanford, but still, IPFW's stunning 4-game win over #1 seed Pepperdine last night was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Kudos to Arnie Ball for making it to the title match for the first time in six attempts, defeating Marvelous Marv Dunphy in the process.

Considering that since 1970, only 7 non-West Coast / BYU / Hawaii teams have ever reached the title match (+/-1 for Lewis's...whatever that was), this was gi-normous. It's a promising sign for the men's game that four of those appearances have happened since 2000, and this is the second year in a row a non-MPSF team has pulled off an upset.

You just hope the progress continues before athletic departments send men's volleyball the way of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (what the hell was that, anyway?).

Perhaps Blake Sebring was right about that 3-hour difference being a factor afterall.

IPFW. UCI. For all the marbles. Saturday.

Lions and Mastodons, and, um, Waves and...Anteaters...oh my?

Just to touch base, it's UC Irvine vs. Penn State, and Pepperdine vs. IPFW in the men's Final Four starting Thursday in Columbus, OH (Buckeyes didn't make it. Bet that home court advantage would've been cool. Whoops.).

Considering last year's upset of Irvine which opened the door for UCLA to pop Penn State in the nose for Al Scates' bazillionth title, we'll go ahead and assume Marv and Speraw get in the finals, with Speraw taking home the goodies. You can only have a non-MPSF miracle so often.

But that doesn't mean Ft. Wayne newspaperman Blake Sebring can't dare to dream. He lists a number of factors that should work in IPFW's favor, including a "time advantage: 5 p.m. at Ohio State is like 2 p.m. for Pepperdine."

And as everyone knows, 2 p.m. for Pepperdine is like 4 a.m. for normal humans. The Waves are so screwed...

But here's the part I love, care of ncaa.org:

A printable bracket? For four teams? Really? Don't you think people could, you know, draw one themselves?

And is there a real need for a printable bracket for the men's Final Four? I know as Americans we love our brackets, but I think it's a little optimistic to assume a huge demand exists for a printable men's volleyball bracket. Kinda like a bagpipe player with a beeper.