These guys are killing me.  Notre Dame's men's basketball team took No. 3 UConn into overtime before losing last night.  ND is now 13-11, 4-9 in conference play.  But the killer is they always come so close.  Their last 10 losses have been by an average of 4.3 points.  They've also come close to knocking off several ranked opponents in overtime, but they just can't close.  They may just be the best awful team out there this season.

With the college football season over and the NFL into the playoffs, I recently allowed myself to start thinking ahead to college basketball.  I admit I really don’t get into it until February; following football just consumes too much of my time.  But my mind started to wander as I flipped channels the other night and saw ND lose a heart-breaker to Syracuse, and it got me thinking about the granddaddy of all student athletic traditions at ND, the Bookstore Basketball Tournament. 

For those of you who are not ND alums or aren’t married to one and therefore don’t have to listen to us prattle on about all things Irish, Bookstore is commonly cited as the largest five-on-five, outdoor basketball tournament in the world.  Most of the student body, and a significant number of professors, coaches and university staff, participate.  It’s a classic, single-elimination, five-on-five tournament that rages on the outdoor asphalt courts that dot the ND campus for several weeks each April. 

Some teams are serious, most are not.  In fact, the vast majority of teams are just out there for the hell of it, complete with ridiculous costumes.  My all-time favorite was a team that dressed themselves completely in duct tape.  They looked like silver space-age mummies.  I can only imagine how long it took them to suit up and the pain that ensued when they de-robed.  Another favorite was my friend’s Braveheart-inspired team back in ’97.  They all wore kilts and blue war paint a la Mel Gibson.  Funny thing was, they actually had a couple guys who could play and made it deep into the tournament.  The highlight was that the few guys who couldn’t play would resort to giving a Highland Salute to opposing players as they charged the basket, and true to form, they wore nothing under their kilts.  All teams must have a name and countless hours are wasted trying to come up with clever epithets that will pass the review board.  Give Catholic kids rules and they will undoubtedly uncover a way around them.

After the first three or four rounds, when the joke teams have been eliminated, the real tournament kicks in.  The remaining teams are good, and although they usually consist of a couple of varsity athletes (rules state you can only have one varsity basketball player per team, he/she must have no remaining NCAA eligibility, and no more than three varsity athletes from any other sport), a team of “regular” guys will usually pull a Gonzaga and make a march for glory.  And when that happens, they quickly become the crowd favorite.

How big is Bookstore?  Let me put it this way; they #### stands around the outdoor courts for the semi-finals and finals.  The student paper covers it like it’s the NCAA tournament, famous alumni come back to play in an exhibition game before the final -- I’ll never forget watching Tony Rice play one year; the guy has an amazing vertical – and going to a game is a perfectly acceptable excuse to get out of, well, just about anything. 

But it transcends all that.  Bookstore draws the whole school together in a way only football season can match.  For a few short weeks when northern Indiana is just starting to wake up from its winter nap, we come alive again.  We clear out the cobwebs and get excited about sports and being Notre Dame again.  And it provides countless excuses for blowing off studying for finals a bit longer.

My roommates and I entered the tournament our senior year and it continues to be one of my favorite memories from college.  There is a separate women’s draw and it tends to be quite competitive, but we knew we had no chance of winning anything so we entered the main draw.  We drew a team of freshman guys in the first round.  Now, our average height was about 5’4,” at most.  Four of the five of us had played basketball, an all-star point guard among us, so we weren’t horrible, but we weren’t exactly good either.  In the end we put up a good fight, had a great time and bought the kids a case of beer after the game because they finally figured out what our team nickname meant. (For the record it was “Triple Stuffed Oreo”; we were three white girls, a Mexican-American and a Vietnamese-American.)  Fortunately we had more serious matters to attend to.  My roommate's boyfriend’s team, consisting of him, three varsity football players and a guy who turned down a chance to walk onto the basketball team, was projected to be a contender, and we had anointed ourselves their official cheerleaders/hecklers.  We had work to do.  I’d like to think our clever quips and exhortations to put some hustle in their game helped them into the final eight.  Granted, two of the guys now play in the NFL so they really didn’t need any athletic coaching from us.

So now I want to hear from you guys.  I can only speak from my own experience at Notre Dame, but I think Bookstore is hard to top.  I want to know, what’s the greatest collegiate athletic tradition out there? 

I realize my bio is a bit short and really doesn’t say much about me or why I entered this contest.  That’s largely because I thought only my friends would read it and have been writing mostly to entertain them and myself with really no hope of moving on in the contest.  But low and behold, some of you out there found me and I guess you liked what you read and here I am.  Talk about pressure. 

I really can’t believe I made the finals, especially after reading the other finalists’ blogs.  I’m honored to be in their company and happy to be representing for the ladies.  So in the spirit of getting to know each other better …

I’m 27 years old and live in the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC.  I’m originally from Memphis – from which I got an appreciation of pork BBQ, a love for college hoops, and my sass – but was raised in Baltimore.  I currently work in strategic communications, which basically means I’m the second-most hated thing in DC next to a lobbyist – a spin doctor.  But I work for a not-for-profit group so I can live with myself and sleep at night.  I have an admitted weakness for hockey players; that’s why I married one.  Apparently missing teeth is not such an issue for me, and if my dear husband were no longer, you’d find me in Philly stalking Peter Forsberg.  More than I already am.  My dream job would be doing profile pieces and interviews for a pre-game show or sports-magazine/Web site.  I love the human drama inherent in sports, and I know my talent lies more in storytelling than reporting.  Of course, there is a fine line between drama and sappiness.  The world doesn’t need another Bud Collins.

These are the beliefs I hold sacred:

• I believe in a QB named Joe, a receiver named Rocket, and a back called the Bus.
• I believe Peter Angelos is the worst thing to ever happen to the Orioles.
• I believe Gretzky really was the greatest.
• I believe Bobby Bowden is the anti-Christ, and his sons are his evil minions.
• I believe lacrosse is one of the greatest sports on earth, but I won’t bore the 99.9% of you who’ve never seen a face-off with talking about it.
• I believe football was meant to be played outdoors, regardless of the weather, and not in a dome.
• I believe Nike is the evil empire.
• I believe the ground can’t cause a fumble.  If you can’t hold on to the ball, you can’t hold on to the ball.
• I believe Mike Krzyzewski is the best coach in Division I basketball history.
• I believe the guy yelling the loudest at the game actually knows the least about it.
• I believe in going into mourning the day after the college football season ends.
• I believe if you’re going to drink beer, make it one that actually tastes like beer and not yellow-tinted water.
• I believe throwing like a girl is a compliment..
• I believe the hook shot is a thing of beauty and Kareem was Michelangelo.
• I believe Indy’s failure to win the Big One is not on Peyton Manning’s head but Bob Irsay’s.  He cursed the team when he snuck out of Baltimore in the dead of night like the weasel that he was.
• I believe all you really need in life is someone you love and who loves you in return, great friends, family you can count on, and the love of a hound dog.

I’m going to brag for a minute. The NCAA just released Graduation Success Rate (GSR) figures for Division I-A schools. This new measurement was created to account for the high rate of transferring that occurs among college students, student athletes included. Now, here comes the bragging.

Among Division I-A schools, Notre Dame tops the list with programs scoring 100% graduation rates with 16 of 20 (80%) teams posting complete graduation figures. In football, ND posted a 96 GSR, with only the Naval Academy, at 98, scoring higher. None of the other BCS teams this year made the top 10. In fact, the next closest is Penn State with an 86 GSR. ND has been struggling with its identity as a football powerhouse versus an academic powerhouse for the last two decades. I think these results prove, it is possible to be both. See, there are no “easy” majors at Notre Dame. There are no majors populated almost exclusively by athletes as you’ll find at many universities. The most commonly cited “easy” majors are Psychology and Marketing. No cake walk there. Furthermore, all athletes have to fulfill the same basic liberal arts requirements that all Notre Dame students have. This means taking at least two semesters a piece of English, math, social science and science classes, in addition to fulfilling theology and philosophy requirements.  Ballroom dancing is not an option for credit.

Last year, several notable alums called for the University to relax its academic standards to recruit better athletes. This year’s on-field success, using the same athletes Ty Willingham recruited and groomed, coupled with the demonstrated classroom success, shows the fallacy of taking that path. Athletes are athletes. Some are more physically blessed than others, and some are more intellectually gifted than others. Notre Dame has always been, and will continue to be able to recruit good athletes. What sets a team apart is execution. And smart teams execute better, and at a higher level, than merely athletically gifted ones. Smart athletes are bale to grasp more complex systems, as Charlie Weis’ tutelage has demonstrated, that can usually overcome brute force.

As an ND student, I was pleased to know that the football players were being held to the same standards as the rest of us. Sure they had extra tutoring options, but they also had a much larger and more time consuming extracurricular commitment than I did. As an alum, I’m proud to see the graduation rate mimic that of the overall school population. I can only hope the University continues to place the same importance on “scholar” part of scholar-athlete as they have in the past.

Sorry to have been slow to post lately. Unfortunately, the real job has been demanding this past week. Happy holidays!