Better Know a Bracket: East Region

In the interest of helping the public pick a better bracket, we at TSB thought it would be a good idea for you to get to better know a bracket. Therefore, we dug up some dirt on every school in the field, and are dishing it out in reverse order of seeding, one region at a time. Monday, we covered the Midwest and West Regions. Today, the South and East.

School: No. 16 East Tennessee State
Location: Johnson City, Tennessee
First Round: March 18, 7:15 PM, No. 16 East Tennessee State vs. No. 1 Kentucky
Mascot: Buccaneers, adopted in 1935, possible because “the Teachers sounds too innocent and academic, and they wanted more of a fighting name.”
Famous Alumni: Peyton Manning pal Kenny Chesney is the alpha and omega, but his relationship with the university -- he’s got a degree in advertising -- lasted about as long as his marriage to Renee Zellweger.
Campus Note: Wikipedia says: “The Mini Dome” -- an on-campus indoor stadium -- “has hosted many non-athletic events which could not be housed in an indoor setting on most American college campuses, such as national indoor championships for free flight model aircraft.”
Standout Stat: Don’t expect the Bucs to outshoot Kentucky: they rank 276th in three-point shooting, 152nd in field goal percentage, and 261st from the line.
Vegas Odds: 500-1
School: No. 15 Morgan State
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
First Round: March 19, 12:15 PM, No. 15 Morgan State vs. No. 2 West Virginia
Mascot: Bears. I don’t know why, and welcome anyone with better Google skills than me providing that reason.
Famous Alumni: Pro Football Hall of Famers Roosevelt Brown, Willie Lanier, and Leroy Kelly, Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe, and Academy Award-winning actress Mo’Nique.
Campus Note: Morgan State is the only HBCU in the field, and has strong football and lacrosse traditions that don’t extend to the basketball team, which is making its second-straight -- and second -- NCAA Tournament appearance.
Standout Stat: The Bears didn’t beat a team in the top 100 of Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, and lost to each of the six NCAA Tournament teams they played. West Virginia will have little problem making that seven.
Vegas Odds: 500-1
School: No. 14 Montana
Location: Missoula, Montana
First Round: March 18, 9:50 PM, No. 14 Montana vs. No. 3 New Mexico
Mascot: Grizzlies, which can be shortened to Griz or Lady Griz.
Famous Alumni: Larry Krystkowiak! Micheal Ray Richardson! Carroll “Archie Bunker” O’Connor! J.K. Simmons, perhaps best known as J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies! That’s about it.
Campus Note: Named the most scenic campus in America by Rolling Stone, Montana University occupies 220 acres near the mouth of Hellgate Canyon. Let me repeat: there’s a nearby feature called Hellgate Canyon.
Standout Stat: The Grizzlies are in the nation’s top 70 in three-point shooting, field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and steal and block percentage. But that has come against rather poor competition: Washington was Montana’s only opponent in Ken Pomeroy’s top 100.
Vegas Odds: 500-1

School: No. 13 Wofford
Location: Spartanburg, South Carolina
First Round: March 19, 3:00 PM, No. 13 Wofford vs. No. 4 Wisconsin
Mascot: Terriers, because a dog raced onto a baseball field in 1909 and tried to bite someone, according to this alum.
Famous Alumni: Wendi Nix, and, bizarrely, commissioners of both the Securities Exchange Commission (Paul Atkins) and Federal Communications Commission (Michael Copps), who served mostly under George W. Bush.
Campus Note: Wofford is small. How small, you ask? The school’s enrollment is just under 1,500 students, which makes Wofford the second-smallest school to ever make the NCAA Tournament -- and makes the Terriers’ 15-man roster about one percent of the student body.
Standout Stat: Beating Wofford should be a simple matter: teams scoring more than 70 points in regulation are 6-2 against the Terriers. Problem is, Wofford’s 24-2 when holding opponents under 70 for the first 40 minutes, the only losses coming to Pittsburgh and Bradley.
Vegas Odds: 500-1

School: No. 12 Cornell
Location: Ithaca, New York
First Round: March 19, 12:30 PM, No. 12 Cornell vs. No. 5 Temple
Mascot: Big Red, because lyrics to a song written in 1905 included the phrase “big, red team” and it stuck. The bear on the logo derives from a live bear once used as an unofficial mascot -- you can see the first one, Touchdown, above -- but now the bear at Cornell games is just a student in a suit.
Famous Alumni: Pick any from this (Pearl Buck! Toni Morrison! Ruth Bader Ginsburg! Dick Schaap! Bill Nye!), just don’t pick Andy Bernard to be the “alum” for the law school unless you want some blowback.
Campus Note: There is a Cornell campus in Qatar, and it was the first American medical school outside the United States.
Standout Stat: One reason Jay Bilas and others are so high on Cornell is their sharpshooting: the Big Red lead the nation in three point field goal percentage (43.8%) and have just two players shooting under 40% for the season.
Vegas Odds: 225-1 School: No. 11 Washington
Location: Seattle, Washington
First Round: March 18, 7:20 PM, No. 11 Washington vs. No. 6 Marquette
Mascot: Huskies, which replaced “Sun Dodger,” a reference to the local weather that actually sounds pretty cool. But the awesome part of Washington’s Huskies are their colors, purple and gold, purportedly inspired by the opening stanza of Lord Byron’s The Destruction of Sennacherib:

⇥The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
⇥And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
⇥And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
⇥When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep GalileeIf I were a Washington student, I would memorize that and recite it often, because it’s almost better as a chant than an inspiration. “Assyrian” would get some looks, though.
Famous Alumni: Smart women like Jeanette Rankin, first female member of Congress, and Beverly Cleary, an all-time great of children’s literature, some of The Presidents of the United States of America (the band), Jesus (as played by Jim Caviezel), and Sonny Sixkiller, whose name is even better than the fame he attained from being in the original The Longest Yard.
Campus Note: The school newspaper is The Daily of the University of Washington. Stunningly, that title is usually shortened to The Daily, except, I assume, when the editorial board wants to make a point.
Standout Stat: The Huskies had zero road or neutral-site wins before February 13. Now they have seven.
Vegas Odds: 150-1
School: No. 10 Missouri
Location: Columbia, Missouri
First Round: March 19, 2:45 PM, No. 10 Missouri vs. No. 7 Clemson
Mascot: Tigers, and the name “comes from a band of armed guards called the Missouri Tigers who, in 1864, protected Columbia from Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War.”
Famous Alumni: Besides former President Harry Truman, Missouri boasts a deep roster of journalism graduates, including seemingly half of ESPN: Pat Forde, Wright Thompson, Seth Wickersham, John Anderson, and Michael Kim all still work for the Worldwide Leader, and the Big Ten Network’s Mike Hall and Turner Sports’ Matt Winer are both former ESPNers. The most famous Mizzou J-school student, however, is dropout Brad Pitt
Campus Note: Missouri claims to have originated “homecoming,” though the school’s Wikipedia page cites Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy! as bodies that have certified this fact.
Standout Stat: The Tigers create turnovers; this you know, if only because of the reputation of coach Mike Anderson, a Nolan Richardson protege. But their first round game against Clemson should be a great one because both Tigers teams force turnovers, and are the only two teams in the NCAA field to rank in the top ten of Pomeroy’s defensive turnover percentage.
Vegas Odds: 150-1
School: No. 9 Wake Forest
Location: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
First Round: March 18, 9:45 PM, No. 9 Wake Forest vs. No. 8 Texas
Mascot: Demon Deacons, because “after a particularly impressive win against the Duke Blue Devils, a newspaper reporter wrote that the Deacons “fought like Demons”, giving rise to the current team name, the “Demon Deacons.” I suppose having their name inspired by another team was better than keeping “Fighting Baptists.”
Famous Alumni: Tim Duncan and Chris Paul are certainly the two headliners in today’s sports world, but Arnold Palmer was a Demon Deacon, too.
Campus Note: From Wikipedia: ”(The Student Union’s) most celebrated and well-attended event is the annual “Shag on the Mag” that occurs on the Manchester Quad (formerly the Magnolia Quad) each spring and was begun in 2005 by then Springfest Chairman Joseph Bumgarner. A big tent covering the entire quad is laid out and students shag dance together.” Schools in North Carolina are so modern.
Standout Stat: Bright side: the Deacs play defense, ranking seventh in opponents’ two-point field goal percentage and 17th in defending from distance. Not-so-bright side: they have one win since February 13, and got routed by Miami in the ACC Tournament.
Vegas Odds: 200-1
School: No. 8 Texas
Location: Austin, Texas
First Round: March 18, 9:45 PM, No. 8 Texas vs. No. 9 Wake Forest
Mascot: Longhorns, derived from Longhorn cattle and adopted by 1900 by Texas newspapers. Did you know that the Longhorn is Texas’ state large mammal? Now you do.
Famous Alumni: A few of scores: Kevin Durant, Roger Clemens, Walter Cronkite, Lloyd Bentsen, Janis Joplin, and Mary Lou Retton.
Campus Note: “Fraternities at Texas are known for “hazing hard” and more than fifteen organizations are currently on probation for hazing activity. In 2006, Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge Tyler Cross died from falling off of a balcony at University Towers with a BAC of .19, his family received a reported $16 million from Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity.” Greek life is bigger in Texas, too.
Standout Stat: Record through January 16: 17-0. Record since: 7-9, with losses to Connecticut and Oklahoma.
Vegas Odds: 75-1

School: No. 7 Clemson
Location: Clemson, South Carolina
First Round: March 19, 2:45 PM, No. 7 Clemson vs. No. 10 Missouri
Mascot: Tigers, brought to Clemson by the school’s first football coach, an admirer of Princeton.
Famous Alumni: This region’s best bizarre dinner party: Henry Kissinger, William “Refrigerator” Perry, Strom Thurmond, and Nancy O’Dell. For USMNT fans: Stuart Holden and Oguchi Onyewu.
Campus Note: This is strange: “It has been a Clemson tradition dating from September 24, 1977 for Clemson fans to spend two dollar bills on away game trips. This began when Clemson played Georgia Tech “for the last time” as Tech refused to travel to Clemson. Of the seventeen games played between Tech and Clemson between 1953 and 1977, only once, in 1974, did the Yellow Jackets deign to come to Death Valley. To show the Atlanta business community how much money Clemson fans contributed to the local economy which would not be coming to town anymore, Tiger fans spent vast quantities of two dollar bills, many of them stamped with Tiger Paws. This was the start of Clemson’s two dollar bill tradition, which was very popular in the 1980s and 1990s, but has waned since then.”
Standout Stat: Trevor Booker is a monster inside, but stands only 6’7”, and no one on the Clemson roster is taller than 6’9”.
Vegas Odds: 100-1
School: No. 6 Marquette
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
First Round: March 18, 7:20 PM, No. 6 Marquette vs. No. 11 Washington
Mascot: Golden Eagles, changed from Warriors in 1994 because it was “insensitive.” Better tidbit: prior to being disbanded in 1960, the football team was known as the Golden Avalanche.
Famous Alumni: Chris Farley’s the biggest name, followed by Joe McCarthy and Dwyane Wade, and sportswriters Steve Rushin and Charlie Pierce.
Campus Note: The name most often associated with Marquette? Late coach Al McGuire, as ESPN’s Jim Caple detailed in 2003.
Standout Stat: Marquette is even shorter than Clemson -- little-used Joseph Fulce is, at 6’7”, the tallest Golden Eagle -- but makes up for it with Lazar Hayward’s versatility and Jimmy Butler’s efficiency (fifth in Pomeroy’s Offensive Rating).
Vegas Odds: 100-1
School: No. 5 Temple
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
First Round: March 19, 12:30 PM, No. 5 Temple vs. No. 12 Cornell
Mascot: Owls, because, well: “The owl, a nocturnal hunter, was initially adopted as a symbol for Temple University because began as a night school for ambitious young people of limited means. Russell Conwell, Temple’s founder, encouraged these students with the remark: ‘The owl of the night makes the eagle of the day.’” I call hogwash on owls ever becoming eagles. This isn’t Animorphs.
Famous Alumni: Not a whole lot: Bill Cosby is the star, and Tom Sizemore, Daryl Hall, John Oates, and Bob Saget are on the list, but when the alumni section on Wikipedia’s counting lab school attendance to claim Noam Chomsky, there’s a lack of household names. The offbeat group is vibrant, though: comedians Eric Wareheim and Tim Heidecker both attended Temple, as did M.I.A. simpatico and “Paper Planes” producer Diplo.
Campus Note: Temple University, Japan Campus is the oldest and largest foreign university in Japan. It’s also only been around since 2005. I think this says more about Japan than Temple, but it’s still neat.
Standout Stat: Dan Levy tipped me to this doozy: Temple coach Fran Dunphy has been a head coach for 20 years. He has coached against three assistants who have become head coaches. And in those 23 games, he has lost once. Why does this matter? Cornell coach Steve Donahue was a Dunphy assistant, and of the 12 losses he’s suffered to Dunphy’s teams, only three were by single digits.
Vegas Odds: 70-1
School: No. 4 Wisconsin
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
First Round: March 19, 3:00 PM, No. 4 Wisconsin vs. No. 13 Wofford
Mascot: Badgers, derived from Wisconsin’s “Badger State” nickname, which in turn is derived from early prospectors in the state who had to “live like badgers” in tunnels burrowed into hillsides to keep warm in the winter.
Famous Alumni: Nobel laureate Saul Bellow did graduate work and is balanced by a trio of female writers, Joyce Carol Oates, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Eudora Welty; Frank Lloyd Wright attended, but did not graduate; Andy Katz is a graduate, as are Bud Selig and Phil Hellmuth; nearly anyone who was ever anything in Wisconsin politics went to Wisconsin; and, most importantly, the co-creators of The Onion, Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson, were both Wisconsin students at the time, and the head writer of The Colbert Report, Rich Dahm, is a Badger. And that’s before we get to the sports figures, including Chris Chelios, Mike Webster, and D. Wayne Lukas.
Campus Note: Wikipedia: “The union is known for the Rathskeller, a German pub adjacent to the lake terrace. It was the first union at a public university to serve beer.”
Standout Stat: Pomeroy’s ratings love Wisconsin: the Badgers are in the top 15 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, and the only other schools with that distinction are Duke and Kansas.
Vegas Odds: 40-1

No. 3 New Mexico
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico
First Round: March 18, 9:50 PM, No. 3 New Mexico vs. No. 14 Montana
Mascot: Lobos: ”“The Lobo is respected for his cunning, feared for his prowess, and is the leader of the pack,” read (a student’s) editorial in the Oct. 1, 1920 issue of the UNM student newspaper. “... All together now; 15 rahs for the LOBOS.” The Lobo was later banned for his teeth: a live wolf pup was brought to games in the 1920s, but the practice was halted because it bit a child. Kids ruin everything.
Famous Alumni: It’s more or less just Brian Urlacher, Danny Granger, and James Brown. No, not the late entertainer whose body wasn’t actually stolen recently, the ecologist known for his work on rodents and harvester ants in the Chihuahuan Desert.
Campus Note: UNM has a duck pond. It is a nice duck pond.
Standout Stat: New Mexico is the highest-seeded team from a non-BCS conference, but Pomeroy’s ratings have the Lobos fourth among the Mountain West’s NCAA qualifiers. That’s because of sketchy defense: according to Pomeroy, of single-digit seeds, only Notre Dame has a worse defensive efficiency than New Mexico.
Vegas Odds: 40-1
School: No. 2 West Virginia
Location: Morgantown, West Virginia
First Round: March 19, 12:15 PM, No. 2 West Virginia vs. No. 15 Morgan State
Mascot: Mountaineers, which comes from the Mountain State nickname for West Virginia and the state motto, “Mountaineers are always free.”
Famous Alumni: It’s Jerry West, then everyone else, though the quartet of Antoine Fuqua, Cheryl Hines, Don Knotts, and Billy Mays certainly stands out in the dramatic arts.
Campus Note: WVU and Morgantown are served by Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit, an award-winning people mover developed in part by a WVU industrial engineering professor.
Standout Stat: Windex doesn’t clean the glass like the ‘Eers do: West Virginia ranks second in offensive rebound percentage to Old Dominion, and the Colonials didn’t compile their stats against the Big East.
Vegas Odds: 10-1
School: No. 1 Kentucky
Location: Lexington, Kentucky
First Round: March 18, 7:15 PM, No. 1 Kentucky vs. No. 16 East Tennessee State
Mascot: Wildcats, which comes with one of those boring “fought like X” origin stories. A bit cooler: the color of blue Kentucky wears was initially based on the color of a student’s tie.
Famous Alumni: Ashley Judd is the most famous citizen of Big Blue Nation. Contrary to the state’s beliefs, though, the world is bigger than UK basketball, and claiming “the father of modern genetics,” Thomas Hunt Morgan, is a bigger deal. And you can pick your own basketball players from the list.
Campus Note: The school’s motto is “See Blue” and the school seal has the state’s motto, “United we stand, divided we fall” on it, and I’m sure not even having Greek or Latin translations is a point of pride for some in the state.
Standout Stat: Approximately five billion words have been written about John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and the rest of UK’s supremely talented team. But the way to beat them is by stopping their offense: the Wildcats have been held to under 45% in effective field goal percentage four times this season, and they have a 2-2 record in those games, with those wins coming against Vanderbilt and Connecticut and by three and two points, respectively.
Vegas Odds: 4-1↵