Quizno's? Really?

You know, you can talk about your Competitive Cauldron, your Blue Curtain, your...Squared Gold Medal, but can any of that match the infinite power of The Quizno's?

Kudos to Marjorie Cho for knowing what Crash Davis knew: "A player on a streak has to respect the streak." In other words, if you think you're winning because you're eating a peppercorn parmesan turkey with bacon, or because you won't sleep with Susan Sarandon, then you are.

Personally, I'd rather base a winning streak on Blimpie's, but that's just me.

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.

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.

I don't get it

Here's an excerpt from the Orange County Register article about UC Irvine's men's team beating BYU in the MPSF semis:

UC Irvine knew the speakers would either play the Beatles or the soundtrack to the musical "Annie" after Thursday's men's volleyball semifinals in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

"Helter Skelter" or "It's the Hard-Knock Life"?

The Anteaters and their "Fab Four" [groan] — seniors Jayson Jablonsky, David Smith, Brian Thornton and Matt Webber — are loving tomorrow instead of lamenting their yesterdays with their 30-19, 28-30, 27-30, 30-27, 15-10 victory over BYU.

OK, so the "Annie" reference is for the song "Tomorrow," and if we assume Orange County Register reporter K.J.M. Singleton is following some kind of chain of logic, then the Beatles reference is "Yesterday."

That makes...no sense.

"Yesterday" is a sad song, so I'm guessing that would be playing in the speakers if UC Irvine had lost. But "Tomorrow" is a song about not worrying about how bad things are today because there's always tomorrow. And since they won the match, they wouldn't really be looking forward to tomorrow in the way the song describes.

Why try so hard to be so clever? Instead of "soundtrack to the musical 'Annie'" Singleton could have used...virtually ANY of the THOUSANDS of songs out there that are more, what's the word, "positive."

And if he wanted to stick with "Yesterday," Singleton could have gone with something like "Right Here, Right Now," couldn't he?

Am I alone in this? The whole thing just doesn't work...I don't know why I'm so annoyed...just, give me a moment.