JOURNEY TO THE WAC TOURNEY

(It's a lot like the Old Mexico, except you can't pay the police to get out of trouble.)

Wednesday

Women's first round
Noon game: No. 5 Louisiana Tech (9-7 WAC, 15-14 overall) vs. No. 4 Nevada (9-7, 18-11)
[Edit] Final score: La Tech 82, Nevada 56

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- The first game (I'm not including the play-in games yesterday) has begun here at the Pan American Center and that screaming you don't hear in the background is hundreds and hundreds of elementary school children who have apparently been given the afternoon off from school and bused in to watch the first round of the women's WAC Tournament. They're completely filling a section. It has to be an entire elementary school. Maybe two. They currently make up 86% of the crowd, which as of this moment has a median age of about 11.3 years. The interesting part, if you don't mind a couple thousand screaming children, is they brought in local kids for a Nevada vs. La Tech game, so they're cheering everything. Turnovers. Shots. Misses. Jump balls. Successful passes. TV timeouts. Doesn't matter which team. During introductions, all 10 starters were cheered as if they were Santa's First Lieutenant in Charge of Gift Disbursement. Someone send a truckload of Ritalin, STAT.

On a sad and don't-you-feel-old kind of note, they just played the classic song from Peanuts*, you know the no-words, piano-solo one, and not a single kid reacted. No dancing. No cheering. Nothing. A generation ago, the roof would have come off this place. Now, more kids probably know the words to Soulja Boy songs than even know who Charlie Brown is. More on the decline of civilization in the 10-o'clock hour.

*Here's a clip of the song. Fifteen points to anyone who can educate us on the official name of that song and who wrote it. (You have to be a regular customer of this blog to realize we are in a continual trivia/scavenger hunt game. Feel free to join. I'll post standings when enough people are playing to actually have standings.) While I was looking for song clips, I also saw this one. Is there any explanation for this guy wearing wrist braces? Is that new piano playing technology of some sort, the way the bowlers wear them, or did he just fall off a trampoline in the last couple weeks?

Louisiana Tech is pulling away. Did I mention that? They're up 42-25 at the half. Tiawana Pringle, the point guard for Tech is a solid player. She took a charge earlier, had the back of her head bounce off the floor and had to be helped to the bench where she looked like she might not know which school she plays for. And yet she was back a few minutes later. Money says she takes over in the second half.

They just had a halftime dance contest between two elementary school kids in the middle of the court to the Beatles song "Twist and Shout," and neither of them were doing the twist. No one should be allowed to win that contest without actually twisting. They're fifth-graders, I realize, but still. Luckily, some Nevada cheerleaders stepped in and saved the day. (Pictured below, hopefully. My camera batteries just went dead so that will be the last picture of the day.)

OK, the kids were shipped back to school at halftime. The place is empty and the second half went quickly. La Tech wins 82-56, a score that should not be possible for a No. 4 vs. No. 5 game. Seems like in tournament games where you have that win-or-go-home pressure, the team with history and tradition has a big advantage. (Wildly insightful, I realize.) Pringle finished with 12 points and 7 turnovers. So much for that prediction.

Couldn't help notice that Brandi Fitzgerald, a Nevada player, has a tattoo of California on her arm. I'm sure she's a California native, but it does seem a little strange since she plays in a different state now. Later, we'll have a discussion on the worst tattoos in sports, starting with Kobe Bryant.

The highlight of Game 1 was members of the Fresno State band singing a version of Twisted Sister's "You're Not Gonna Take It," while Louisiana Tech players shot free throws. You're not gonna make it. No! You're not gonna make it. Well done, Bulldogs.