ADB Bracket Status Sweet Sixteen Checkpoint

The men have started, and the women about are about to start, their Sweet Sixteen play so it feels like a good time to check in on my brackets in the A Dime Back (the pre-eminent UConn sports fan site and podcast) groups on ESPN.com.

It's early, and a lot of games will have to break my way before all is said and done, but looking at these results as they stand, it calls to mind how in 2004 and 2014 both the men's and women's UConn basketball teams won their respective national championships. Could such a historic Tournament Challenge group championship sweep be in the offing?

Time will tell.

Dee the GOAT!

Big congrats to the incomparable @DianaTaurasi, who became the @WNBA's all-time leading scorer today! #GOAT http://pic.twitter.com/crdxsEW3uz

— UConn Women's Hoops (@UConnWBB) June 18, 2017

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100 #AndCounting -- UConn WBB Keep On Making History

100 WINS IN A ROW!! #AndCounting http://pic.twitter.com/9dHNr4hXgI

— UConn Huskies (@UConnHuskies) February 14, 2017

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94 #AndCounting - UConn v. ECU

The UConn Women set a new record every time they play, so we took the drive out to ECU to see them win their 94th consecutive game. Gabby notched a triple double, a nice bonus for us to see only the 5th in UConn WBB history. A historic night on a couple fronts.

This will likely be the only game I see live this season, though I have some hope of catching a game towards the end of the year -- depending on their 2017-2018 pre-conference schedule -- whether this streak is still alive, or they've started another.

My daughter cheered on Katie Lou

We were all geared up

Always great to see 1st round WNBA draft pick and Husky great Morgan Tuck

There I am in the crowd during SNY's pre-game

Blogger's Digest

Need to clean out the to-be-blogged-about items I've got building up in feedly. Prefer the one-post-per-link-or-subject approach, but the backlog is too daunting. So, it's a digest post. Possibly the first of several?

• The Sherlock Holmes class I wish UConn offered when I was a student
• Rolling Stone's Top 100 TV shows list is not terrible. Deadwood too low. Doctor Who too low. 
• Dangerous Minds resurfaces Theory.org Trading Cards
• Maybe police chiefs could focus more on not killing people, less on their stupid religious biases
• Maybe sheriffs could worry more about other police murdering people than where trans kids go to the bathroom
• Super abusive but cute greeting cards. I can think of a Wake County sheriff deserving a card ...
• Round up of free, classic audiobooks
• Know your cognitive biases
• Know your deplorables
• One of this blog's chief laments, as expressed by Samantha Bee
• Giving Justin Trudeau the side eye -- we're on to you, Canada.
• As an atheist, I guess I should see Sausage Party then? Hmm.
• The Pixies!
• Been working on the swimming and running. Once I get a new bike, will start the last training leg before attempting a sprint triathlon. Speeding safely downhill seems like a good thing to bone up on.
• Know your Derrida.
• My go-to means of viewing movies by ... emm ... occult means appears to have been put down by The Man so I've fallen way behind seeing hard-to-find movies that I really want to see, like High Rise.

Geno really doesn't care what chauvinists think.

The same answer goes for @USABasketball & @UConnWBB from coach Geno Auriemma // #UConnNation https://t.co/D1b3t4n4PL

— UConn (@UConn) August 12, 2016

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Geno & CD Know How To Develop The Talent They Recruit

Congrats to Stewie, Moriah and Morgan, who made @WNBA Draft history! #123

RELEASE: https://t.co/G6g8OPGeqQ http://pic.twitter.com/8eHSAR8yfT

— UConn Women's Hoops (@UConnWBB) April 15, 2016

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Stewie, Tuck, and BonnBonn Leave The Court

Stewart, Tuck and Jefferson leave the court one final time. http://pic.twitter.com/ie2y8OrdXz

— ESPN Women's Hoops (@ESPN_WomenHoop) April 6, 2016

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Marching On ...

FINAL: #UConn 98, Miss. State 38. Huskies win with the largest margin of victory ever in #Sweet16 history. http://pic.twitter.com/whHRfeci2w

— UConn Women's Hoops (@UConnWBB) March 26, 2016

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Ollie's Got His Work Cut Out For Him

It's March. Here's a live look at Ollie and Geno: http://pic.twitter.com/EFXVKefNr6

— We take the stairs (@NoEscalators) March 13, 2016

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The Other Kid From Roxbury

👀 #huskies #uconn http://pic.twitter.com/X8TVLmYQqB

— Kemba walker (@KembaWalker) March 11, 2016

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Just Busy Is All ...

via phys.org

Yep, I've watched "The Husbands of River Song" and hope to finally get my review post up this weekend. Trying to think of a way to incorporate thoughts on the other Moffat-y holiday special, "The Abominable Bride" along with it; but, things have been more hectic than normal since the run-up to the holidays, our family trip to Utah, my weeks of illness (nothing major, just a stubborn, exhausting chest cold and sinus infection -- all better now), and I'll probably need a refresher re-watch before finishing it up.

Also have it in mind it's time to make a mix CD for one of my distant friends. Am leaning towards a theme like North Carolina music through the years -- but not the stadium fillers like Clay Aiken, James Taylor, and Ben Folds, nor the folk/bluegrass/country old-timey stuff we're known for (though the Carolina Chocolate Drops will almost certainly be represented). Want to design it up like how archaeologists of post-anthropocene Earth, the highly evolved descendants of today's cockroaches, might speculate Hopscotch looked based on the scant few clues our civilization will leave behind.

This is all by way of saying I didn't want you all -- or you, if there's only one of you left -- to think I'd forgotten about the joint.

Anything you'd like to discuss in the meantime? #OscarsSoWhite? Me, I'd love to see more folks join Jada Pinkett Smith, her hubs, Spike Lee, and Michael Moore in declining to attend on principle. Actually, I'd especially like to see more Anglo actors and filmmakers step up and call out their brethren (my people, the "whites") ... keep Chris Rock as host, let the audience be nearly all black, asian, and latino; let's see how that ceremony goes and what we'd hear about the Academy being run as a white supremacist group then. I'd pop corn and watch the hell out of that. I bet Ruffalo's down.

As it is, I expected I'll just read about it the next day and see what highlights come out of it.

Or, we could marvel at the observation that David Bowie died, and suddenly there's a ninth planet out there.

bowie leaves us and then a 9th planet appears, i don't need to read your science article

— Stephen Bell (@atstephenbell) January 20, 2016

And, no, none of us were the first to hope it has a satellite we could name the "Alan Rick-Moon."

What else you got? Palin and Trump forming a mutual admiration society to amplify the accusation that Obama made Palin's son into a domestic abuser? Are there more despicable people alive than the GOP's celebrity grifters?

Snowstorm bearing down on the Northeast so climate denialists can point to snow somewhere on Earth where it's winter and deliberately not talk about how hot 2015 was?

Did I mention yet that we cut the cord and dropped cable? SlingTV, pbs.org, Hulu, Netflix, and Prime covering most of the bases, only struggle so far has been not being able to see the Huskies on the ESPN app. Treme, you guys. I think a lot of us slept on Treme. Finally gave House of Cards a try as well and might get hooked ... but I feel like they're walking a fine line when it comes to product placement. I don't mind my characters using brands, I mean, we all do, that's life. However, the degree to which a show can draw attention to it, or pretend it's not drawing attention to it, and still be a drama (as opposed to a fancy commercial) is the question ...

Oh, and how could I forget about the Duke losing streak?! How great is that? The way it rolls of the tongue ... Duke losing streak. Coach K so pissed he can't remember how to shake hands. Maybe the only good thing about 2016 so far?

New ☆ Tweet from @UConnHuskies

Daniel Hamilton joins some elite @UConnMBB company with the program's 11th-ever triple-double in a win vs. CCSU http://pic.twitter.com/rsqM8ZroZl

— UConn Huskies (@UConnHuskies) December 23, 2015

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New ☆ Tweet from @UConnHuskyGames

4/7/2014 - UConn vs. Kentucky (NCAA Tournament - National Championship) http://t.co/hfBlxxknDO

— UConnHuskyGames (@UConnHuskyGames) July 1, 2015

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New ☆ Tweet from @NoEscalators

One last sentimental tweet: Thanks @CoachKO_UConn for the year. I'm beyond proud to have you representing our school.

— We take the stairs (@NoEscalators) March 15, 2015

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The AAC Championship & Wizard Comic Con Raleigh Had To Be On Same Day

Headed up to Raleigh with Number One Son today for our first con together, so that's great. But, when I got the tickets, I didn't think there'd be a conflict with AAC tournament. UConn can steal a bid to the NCAA tournament with a win today ... and I'm going to miss it. (Well, I'll surely be checking my feed for updates from @adimeback and @noescalators, but y'know ... )

Anyways, Go Huskies! #BleedBlue and all that ... we're off to get our nerd on.

This, by the way, is almost exactly what I thought while watching the game yesterday:

If you crop the TV just right, you end up with the greatest broadcast combo in history. pic.twitter.com/hvO2VFtaYf

— A Dime Back (@ADimeBack) March 15, 2015

Although, with apologies to the missus and Joe D'Ambrosio, my first thought during all the stretches where the Huskies couldn't score was more along the lines of, "C'mon, ESPN, put the camera back on DB," without considering whether Joe would be in the shot or not. Or anyone else. ~swoons~

The patient boy is rewarded | #UConn #Fugazi

Fugazi Live Series: A to Z

This can be considered a bit of a turbulent show. For one, the stage is at risk of literally collapsing a number of times and even the ever reticent Joe steps in to talk some sense into the people that keep bumping into it. Also, listen closely as both Guy and Ian confront the audience repeatedly in an effort to manage things.

Photo by John Falls via Dischord

I've been watching for these UConn shows for ages ...

And, FTR, while I was at that "turbulent" '91 show, I wasn't one of the folks Ian had to scold.

Seen en route to the new SC set ... #UConn #GIF

Rip & Jonathan talkin' UConn

Extracted from: http://youtu.be/RALqtxqBX5k

Second verse, same as the first ... another day, another championship. #bleedblue #UConn

They've Been Flawless When It Counted The Most - Courant.com

Another front page devoted to a championship

This is the one we all kind of expected, not to take anything away from ND, but it would have been surprising if this UConn team had lost. Not unthinkable, not impossible, just ... so unlikely. And so, once again, UConn holds both championships at the same time, joining the 2003/2004 squads as the only others to accomplish the feat. 2004, what year, I remember it well because the first dual championships for UConn basketball were the same year the Red Sox brought home a championship for the first time in forever. Of course, the Sox've got a few more since, including 2013, so it feels a little greedy to hope they'll able to but a bow on 2014 as well.

Now we look forward to departing senior Stefanie Dolson in a dance-off with the President, maybe swinging by the Tonight Show -- I'm sure Jimmy Fallon got the memo -- and, back on the hardwoods, to Breanna Stewart returning for junior year. Yeah, she's only a sophomore.

Thanks in large part to Geno and the women's program, UConn is now 13-0 in NCAA championship games. The men have captured four in the last fifteen years. (That's sick, by the way.) I bet by tomorrow, if not already, Geno will be hard at work on getting the women's tenth next year.

It's good to be in Husky Nation. That is all.

Hooray for Olliewood!

UConn Beats Kentucky For National Title - Courant.com

Napier, Boatright, Giffey & co. got it done. Ugly game at times, but this tournament was more about the fight in the dog than the dogs in the fight and there was just no team as hungry, scrappy, *and* talented as these Huskies. Being well-coached had a lot to do with it as well.

Tonight, all eyes in Husky Nation turn to the women and their match-up against Notre Dame. We've got a leg in pot, dual championships have only ever been claimed by UConn programs. Let's do it again!