Blogicized: Sunday ‘Parade’

• If you’re not reading the Sunday Inquirer’s Parade supplement, you’re totally missing out on some tremendous insight. [Wookified]

• No war! Instead, let’s make Mercedes Benz! [All Spin Zone]

• When the Kimmel Center is on Flickr, you know that said particular photosharing application has hit critical mass. [Kimmel Center Blog]

• The Minneapolis bracket matches up two Catholic schools in the Sweet 16, as ‘Nova and BC tangle on Friday. Not just that, but Georgetown’s in the bracket, too! Those heathen Florida Gators will end up advancing to the Final Four, just watch. [The 700 Level]

Hoops Quickies: Wrong Chaney retires

There’s lots of basketball news today, so I’m just going to throw them all together into one post (you can skip it if you’re not interested!):

• In the biggest-yet-not-surprising news of the day, Temple coach John Chaney is retiring. Chaney is a well-respected coach and person, but he also has done such fun things as threaten to kill another coach, and send in a “goon” for hard fouls — culminating with a St. Joe’s player breaking his arm. So, uhh, we should all be sorry to see him go. [6 ABC]

• In teams that made the tournament, Main liners Villanova got a No. 1 seed and will play the winner of the play-in game. The Wildcats will also play their first two games at the Wachovia Center. Ivy Leaguers Penn got a No. 15 seed. Penn will play Texas in Dallas, which means Penn won’t have a second game. [Inky]

• Chaney’s farewell tour will take place starting on Tuesday, as the Owls play a home game on Tuesday against noted hoops power Akron. St. Joe’s gets a first-round bye, while La Salle was left out. [AP/Philly.com]

• The 76ers won yesterday — over Memphis! — but Allen Iverson got hurt in the first half. Cue 10,000 callers to sports talk radio saying the Sixers are better without A.I. [Daily News]

Quickies: EL on Earth

• You saw the preview yesterday. Here’s the rest of Inga Saffron’s column about the new EL stops. [Inky]

• About six hundred kids were out sick in a New Jersey school. Sounds like there’s a huge outbreak of cooties. [NBC 10]

• No. 2 ‘Nova edged Cincinnati last night on a sweet inbounds pass layup in the final seconds. They’re at 24-2 UConn on Sunday. [Inky]

• And, finally, girls pledging a sorority at Penn are being attacked for their lunchboxes. Police suspect Yogi Bear has moved on from pic-i-nic baskets at long last. [Daily Pennsylvanian]

College kids are rude? Well I never!

There’s a big giant story in today’s Daily News by two writers I really like and respect (that’d be Dick Jerardi and Dana O’Neil) about the acrimony between St. Joe’s and Villanova basketball fans and how “bad” it’s gotten in recent years. Last night some SJU kids invaded Jay Wright’s radio show.

So, apparently, now the rollouts are meaner, the fans are obscene and some people yelled something nasty at Villanova coach Jay Wright’s wife. Of course, “It’s never people directly attacking her,” Wright says. And now fans deride the opponent rather than cheer on their school.

And then, there’s this:

Last summer, former St. Joe’s superstar Jameer Nelson worked tirelessly with Villanova sophomore Kyle Lowry at the Wildcats’ gym. More than once, Nelson had to go on the campus and rouse Lowry out of bed. Every time he did he got the look.

“Lots of people saw me on campus,” Nelson said. “They looked at me like, ‘What are you doing here?’ I’m helping one of their guys out, that’s what I was doing.”

Yes, and NBA superstar is on a campus of a school he never went to and people are like What are you doing here? How dare they question the great Jameer!

In my other life, I cover Ivy League basketball for a website. (I know. Who knew?) And so I’m at a lot of games, albeit most of them without any players on scholarship. And fans now in general seem to be ruder. This used to bother me. Now I don’t really care. While St. Joe’s-Nova is a very good, fun rivalry — the “Holy War,” natch — the students at these games aren’t meaner to the opposing team than they are to other schools.

Or not. The “rollouts are worse” sentiment seems to be pretty silly since the most infamous rollout of all time, “What’s the Difference between Chris Ford and a dead baby? A dead baby doesn’t suck.” was a long time ago. Ditto the “HA HA HA FUCK YOU” one at a Penn game in ‘82. Or, that sign at the Spectrum, “Patrick Ewing can’t read this.”

But, then again, wondering why Jameer was in a place he was at? How dare you, Villanova fans.

The Dogs of War [DN]
Of Biblical Proportions [Snowballs for Santa]

Blogicized: Villanowhere

• Villanova has gotten $100,000 from the EPA in hopes that the school can “identify ways to better manage how prescription and non-prescription pharmaceuticals are discarded from university dormitories.” One hundred thousand dollars. For that money, you could give 100 people without healthcare enough money to at least buy a little. Or you could burn 100,000 one dollar bills. Either way, it seems about as useful. [The Trouble With Spikol]

• Filling the former Today’s Man spot on Chestnut Street is Loehmann’s, who has signed a 10 year, $5 million deal. [America's Hometown]

• Huzzah! It’s nice to see a local soldier getting home okay, especially nowadays. [Grizzly Mama]

• Effin’ A. Philabuster rocks out to Mozart on his 250th. [Badminton Stamps]