5-at-10: College basketball betting tidbits, Mad players could threaten Madness, Animal House still great

Mount St. Mary's guard Damian Chong Qui (15) hoists the trophy as he celebrates with teammates after their win in an NCAA college basketball game for the Northeast Conference men's tournament championship against Bryant, Tuesday, March 9, 2021, in Smithfield, R.I. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Mount St. Mary's guard Damian Chong Qui (15) hoists the trophy as he celebrates with teammates after their win in an NCAA college basketball game for the Northeast Conference men's tournament championship against Bryant, Tuesday, March 9, 2021, in Smithfield, R.I. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

College hoops

Wow, lots on the college basketball plate today.

Let's start with the fun.

You know we have the First-Out, Last-In contest. Send me the No. 1 seed you think will get bounced first and the last double-digit seed you think will be dancing.

Yes, it's just that easy, and yes, you can win stuff.

Speaking of betting, considering more than 40% of the states across the country have some form of legalized gambling, while the office pool entries will be down, the huge amounts wagered on this tournament will be likely as big. And legal wagers will be through the roof.

In fact, if you are a believer in the 'trains crash' adage of gambling, well, take this information for whatever you may believe it's worth.

According to the FanDuel folks, https://www.fanduel.com/ there are some clear heavy public favorites in tonight's First Four games:

Check it: The public has 74% of its money on Texas Southern (over Mt. St. Mary's), 59% of its money on Wichita State (over Drake), 65% of its coin on Norfolk State (over App State) and a whopping 90% of its money on Michigan State to beat UCLA.

So there's that.

There's also these, which I found interesting.

> 71% of bets are backing a 12 to beat a 5;

> 81% of best have a First Four team making the Sweet 16;

> More people think there will be zero 1 seeds in the Final Four (16%) than believe there will be exactly one 1 seed in the Final Four (7%);

> And the most popular title game meeting according to Tennessee FanDuel bettors is (wait for it) - Gonzaga and Illinois.

Now for the potentially bad

I saw it first on Dan Wetzel's Twitter feed.

In case you are curious, Dan Wetzel may be as good as anyone putting fingers to keys in sports columnizing these days. That he works for Yahoo! Sports is quite a telling statement of the times, too.

Wetzel late last night linked the statement titled "College Basketball Players Launch March madness Protest" that said it was a group of players from at least 15 teams and it detailed four demands that include having a plan in place by July 1 for name, image and likeness, meetings with NCAA president Mark Emmert, meetings with state and federal leaders including President Biden and some Supreme Court ruling in Alston v. NCAA.

OK, about that last one, this was obviously written by some passionate folks who got some misguided intel. How can a ruling from SCOTUS be part of any pre-hearing bargaining chip?

Still, there were three players mentioned - one from Iowa, one from Rutgers and one from Michigan - and the phrasing of these players being in touch with others, certainly gives this a lot of strength in the Big Ten, which was the strongest conference in hoops all year.

It does not say that there will be any specific protests before games or any promises to sit out games, but is that too far-fetched in this day and age.
What would happen if we get to the Final Four and before the ball is tipped for Illinois-THE Ohio State, which was the most-watched game of the season last Sunday, the teams say, "Nope. Not going anywhere until we get some things cleared up.)

What then?

Bunch of Animals

Are you in the contest? If not, why not? Like the brews at the Delta House, don't cost nothin' to enter.

Side note: OK, last week, I got caught down the rabbit hole of Teen Wolf. Hey it happens. It's prone to happen more often in that 8:30 or so window as the Mrs. 5-at-10 is putting the kids to bed.

Well, last night on a pay channel was Animal House, and Holy Schnikes it's up there near the top of the list all-time of the comedies that age like a fine wine. (Side question: Why is it that you could own a movie and never think to watch it but if it comes on the cable, we get hooked in every single time? Asking for Hoosiers. And Shawshank. And too many others.)

Some big picture admissions about Animal House.

First, if you were in a fraternity, there is way more documentary there than farce. Way more. Consider the following:

The bid scene - "We need the dues" was spot on. Spot on, even down to Otter's speech about Stork being brain-damaged and Boone having a face like a pepperoni pizza.

Donald Sutherland was perfect. Side question: Do we underrate Sutherland's career a touch? I'm not saying he's in the DeNiro, Freeman, Denzel territory, but check out his career and his array of performances - he was Hawkeye in the M*A*S*H, he was great in Dirty Dozen, he was excellent in Animal House, he was a terrific villain in Outbreak, Hunger Games and Disclosure and was excellent in bit roles in Backdraft and JFK - is pretty excellent.

There may not be a single quote in the history of the written word that better describes the fraternity experience than Boone and Otter about to hit golf balls at Neidermeyer:

"He can't do that to our pledges."

"Only we can do that to our pledges."

The essence of the road trip. The connection to the bands that play at the house. I could go on and on.

It also leaves me with a raging question and a reminder of its brilliance.

First, the question: How in the name of Sam Spade did Tim Matheson not become a much, Much, MUCH bigger star? Can anyone explain this?

Dude was the home-run hitting star of that movie, and other than being the villain in Fletch, the rest of his career is as forgettable as 'Up the Creek.'

How did a good-looking, smooth talker who crushed as Otter become no better than, what, the fifth biggest star of that film.

No way he'll ever be bigger than Belushi. Or Kevin Bacon. Or Sutherland. Heck, Tom Hulce (Pinto) was nominated for an Oscar and was amazing as Larry in Parenthood. Stephen Furst's career was likely better. Karen Allen is right there too. And D-Day (Bruce McGill) messed around and was in a ton of movies as well.

Seriously, what a classic movie, and I will close as Otter did:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests - we did. [winks at Dean Wormer]

"But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

God bless America.

This and that

- In a time when we are far too often wondering "What in the bleep is this and what happened to America?" Well, this gave me hope Thursday morning. On Uber's Twitter feed - yeah, double upset that hope for the future was found on Twitter no less - was this message: "Transportation shouldn't be a barrier to vaccination. That's why we've partnered with @MSMEDU, @lulac, @unesco, @naturbanleague and @nationalaction to help distribute 10 million rides to help those who need it most." Well-played, Uber. Well-played indeed.

- Man, let the spin spin, huh? So now the Democrat-controlled Congress is bringing back pork. Of course they are. And the story even finds an economist from the left-leaning Brookings Institute to try to 'splain it to us simple folk. "There are a lot of reasons to bring back earmarks," says John Hudak of the Brookings Institution. "Earmarks can foster bipartisanship. Earmarking happens no matter what, and right now we have a lot of executive branch earmarks happening instead of Congressional ones. Congress should take that power back from the executive branch." What a load of BS. First, fostering bipartisanship in this manner is The Swamp at its worse, and will allow politicians to work together for politicians and not the public. Simply put, Obama was right to target this waste of taxpayer money and the Republican Congress a few years later was right in ending it. Second, what kind of hogwash is this "The executive branch has it so legislative should too" in the big picture of things? That's like my 13-year-old coming in and saying, "Cade eats chocolate for every meal, I think I should be able to too." Uh, no. Go clean your room. And please stop with the 'new nam' mumbo jumbo. It's not called "Community project funding" rather than earmarks. PUH-lease. Far more times than not, it's still self-interested governmental malfeasance designed to win reelection more than anything else. Oh, and yeah, there's a limit of 1% of discretionary funding can be earmarked. That's good right? Well, the author of this stump speech for the return for Congressional pork may have accidentally left out that the total of that discretionary fund is a tidy $1.45 trillion - yes TRILLION with a T - so 1% of that is only $14.5 billion. Yeah, pennies. And finally, what kind of sentence is this, and remember this is a liberal view point trying to defend this: "Unseemly as this type of dealmaking may be, it has been a seminal feature of legislation since the founding of the country." Uh, as awful as it was, wasn't slavery a prominent feature in the first half of the growth of this nation? America lost on this one. Period.

- And I'll go you one better than bad for America. This is just plain operationally stupid for the Democrats, especially considering the timing. They have had control for, what, less than two months, and their two big flag-sticking accomplishments is spending $1.9 trillion on a relief bill that is too big by at least half and reinstating the ability to put pork-spending into our budget at a time when the deficit is historically big and growing. How's that for some bad optics, and nevermind they played right into the fears of every doubt-filled fiscal conservatives like me.

- I'll take "Talent Producers" for $400 Alex. Side question: Does that still work since, you know, Alex is pushing daisies? Side question on the side question: Does 'Pushing daisies' make the Rushmore of euphemisms for death? Any well, in terms of talent producers, the best high school basketball stat in terms of Grade A primo talent has, in my mind, always been that three Dunbar High teammates - Mugsy Bouges, Reggie Lewis and Reggie Williams - were picked in the first round of the 1987 NBA draft. Now comes this detail that a N.J. high school coaching legend has 17 former players in the NCAA tournament. Wow, 17 is insane.

- I don't have a downtown vote, but if Tim Kelly is even considering to remove David Roddy as the Chattanooga Police Chief, then I hope he loses by 50 points. And yes, Kelly said on the record to TFP ace political reporter Sarah Grace Taylor that he supports Roddy, but if you read that story, there was clearly a lot of back-room dealings and more than a little spark to create this much smoke, don't you think?

Today's questions

Hey, random thought Thursday brings this:

Are you better with getting that pesky saran wrap around a dish or the laundry Rubik's cube that is folding the fitted sheet?

Apparently the U.S. Ski & Snowboard CEO is some dude named Tiger Shaw and he is resigning next year. Which is more surprising: That there is a U.S. Ski & Snowboard CEO or that there's another dude out there named Tiger? And if I set the over/under at 100,000 on the number of times when meeting people Mr. Shaw has had to say, "Yeah, Tiger, just like the golfer" is that too low? Discuss.

As for today, well, happy birthday Queen Latifah. She's 51.
Rushmore of famous people with a royal title in their name. Does this Queen make it?

Go and remember the contest and the mailbag.

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