Dear Head Coach Mike Martin ’94 and the Brown University Bears Varsity Men’s Basketball Team,

I hope this missive finds you well. I am first and foremost a fan of your team–one of a select group, really–but I am also a concerned freshman at the university you represent. You see, there are only a few things I want to come away with from my college experience: a decent education; some good memories; some means of securing steady and potentially lucrative employment; and a trip to the NCAA Divison I Men’s Basketball tournament.

Unfortunately, this latter desire seems out of reach. Reaching the NCAA tournament (aka March Madness, aka The Big Dance) requires winning the Ivy League regular-season title: the Ivy League–echoing its academically elitist, survival-of-the-fittest ethos–is the only of the 32 D-I conferences that does not hold a postseason tournament to determine its winner. Postseason tournaments reward good teams, but they also reward lucky ones. Regular-season championships only reward good teams. And as an alumnus like yourself probably knows, Coach Martin, the Brown basketball program has had trouble offering any good teams, much less consistently good teams.

Before I go any further, I want to offer the following disclaimer: I love the Brown basketball team. I attended three of the past four home games, and only missed the fourth because of an unavoidable scheduling conflict. I am possibly the only person ever to download the 790 AM Radio app in order to listen to Brown basketball games on my phone. I have used ESPN’s Gamecast feature to follow every road game of consequence. And I think, from my admittedly limited observation, that every single member of the team seems like both a good human being and a competent basketball player. I just wish this collection of good human beings and competent basketball players could provide Brown the one additional dimension it sorely lacks (besides global prestige on par with its rivals, decent weather, and a nap room). [Read more →]

This Brunonian is participating in one of the alleged “Big Four” sports

There are several people in this world, possibly even a few in this country, who care about hockey. I am not one of those people. My feeling is that it’s a little hypocritical for the general American attitude to be like “soccer sucks, no one ever scores and it’s too European,” and simultaneously be like “hockey rocks, no one ever scores and it’s adorably Canadian.” So last night’s Brown hockey game vs. #9 Yale was only my second-ever hockey experience.

I showed up with my friend (as you can see, I want you to know that I have friends–three at least, and that’s not even counting the guy I met last week in the Ratty!) at the beginning of the second period. The score was already 1-0 Brown when we walked in, but more importantly, there was a free raffle for an iPad Mini open only to freshmen, and only about ten people had entered it. One period later, the score was still 1-0, and some other asshole won the iPad Mini. After that, I was a little unsure why I was still at the game.

Nevertheless, I was able to collect some fairly amusing minutiae from the Meehan Auditorium experience: [Read more →]

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Three cheers for the nachos, the beer, and the heartburn. Hip hip…Beyonce!

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ROOOOOOOOAR

Here’s something you may have missed whilst enjoying your eggnog, Santa, and [whatever else people do for Christmas, don't ask this Jew]. Playing Providence College at home for the first time since you were born, Brown men’s basketball pulled a shocking upset of its in-city Big East big brothers, winning 69-68 on a three-pointer from just-announced Ivy League player of the week forward Tucker Halpern with seven seconds remaining. Halpern’s trey completed a seven-point comeback in the last 43 seconds. Awesome.

OK, so this rockin’ victory happened last Friday, but give us a break (eh? break? see what I did there?), we’re on vacation. Da Bears get another crack at an in-state rival with more pedigree when they go to URI tomorrow. Ivy League play opens January 19 at Pizzitola vs. Yale. Blog will be there. Will you?

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Today at 4:30 p.m., Pac-12 Champion Stanford will take on Big-10 winner Wisconsin in the 2013 iteration of the Rose Bowl Game. Meanwhile, Brown’s football season ended before Thanksgiving. This unfortunate contrast, however, was not always the case. Our own Bruno, in fact, graced the 1916 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the first since 1902. The game ended up starting off a run of annual New Year’s Day games that continues to this day, the “Grandaddy of them All.”

Led by All-American halfback Fritz Pollard, Brown was riding high after a 3-0 victory over Yale and a 38-0 spanking of URI (sound familiar?) back in 1916. Brown was, if you can believe it, actually favored over its opponent, the Washington State Cougars. On a muddy field, the Cougars were able to hold Pollard, the first African-American to play in the Rose Bowl, to a mere 47 yards on 13 carries. Punching in two rushing touchdowns in the second half was enough for Washington State to beat Brown 14-0. [Read more →]

Putting the exclamation point on an exciting and previously-believed-to-be-over Brown men’s soccer season, senior defender and co-captain Ryan McDuff ’13 won the Lowe’s Senior Class Award. The award honors one senior from all the Division I NCAA teams in each sport for their combination of achievements in athletics, academics, community service, and all-around awesomeness. Obviously, McDuff fits the bill, having guided Brown to NCAA tournament berths in each of his four seasons and simultaneously excelled off the field. Brownbears.com, who put the voting link on their splash page for, like, 100000 days in a row, possibly deserves some of the credit as well.  Congrats to McDuff for representing Brown athletics by winning such an impressive national award and for his career-long excellence that brought him the recognition!

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David Oyer: After a brief hiatus brought about by crying for days about men’s soccer losing “studying,” Sixth Man got back in action this weekend by hitting up Brown squash’s opener against Colby College. I hear you out there: “Isn’t squash a little ‘country club’ for us?” Maybe. But so is equestrian, and that doesn’t stop us from being one of two Ivies to field a team/squad/ridership.

Alright, alright, I know you’re clamoring to hear about the squash in all its glory and utmost detail. Hold on a second, though–this week’s post has a special twist. Unbeknownst to yours truly, fellow Blog writer Caitlin Dorman (‘16; only freshmen are dupes enough to end up in makeshift bleachers at Pizzitola at 1 pm on a Saturday) was also in attendance. Perhaps she can lend us a fresh perspective, one that will give us a break from mine, which I would summarize as “Brown squash is a thing that exists.” Caitlin, anything to add?

Caitlin Dorman: David, I go to some sports games for the ra-ra comradery in the bleachers, because I actually love the game (no matter how badly Brown sucks at it), and  because the guys are so damn attractive athletes are so impressive. The courts made me feel a tad claustrophobic (reminiscent of a glass prison cell), and the sport is a little hard to grasp with that tiny ball bouncing all over the place, but man is it fun to cheer the home team on! [Read more →]

Brown men’s soccer’s season came to a heartbreaking end tonight, as Bruno fell 2-1 on a last-minute goal by #2 Maryland. Brown led 1-0 for most of the first half after Dylan Remick ’13 picked up his third assist in two NCAA tournament games on a corner headed in by Bobby Belair ’13. But Maryland tied the game in the closing minutes of the first half and then threatened to score for most of the second half before finally converting a free kick opportunity with a minute remaining to seal the win. The viewing experience was made all the more painful by the horrendous and grossly biased commentators on ULive’s online stream, who produced such gems as “this is the stage where great players become great players” and “Brown is going to be unbelievable to believe that they missed that.”

Despite the loss, da Bears still enjoyed a great season, including a fantastic 2-0 victory over then-undefeated Cornell and an easy 2-0 win over Drexel in the first round of the tournament. Graduating players include Dylan Remick, Ryan McDuff, Eric Robertson, Tom McNamara, Sam Kernan-Schloss, and Kevin Gavey, all strong contributors, but perhaps next year will be just as good anyway. In any case, a bittersweet congratulations from Blog to Brown soccer on an excellent season, and a tip of the cap to the seniors. We’ll miss following our athletic crush. Bruno [read: me] is crying.

Dylan Remick ’13 had both assists for Brown

Yesterday afternoon/evening Brown Men’s Soccer took care of business like we all knew they would, comfortably downing Drexel 2-0 to advance to the second round of the NCAA tournament. Tom McNamara ’13 and Daniel Taylor ’15 each scored first half header goals off passes from unanimous all-Ivy selection Dylan Remick ’13. The live stream of the game available through Drexel’s website was actually pretty good, and I’m confident that at least ten other Brown-affiliated fans used it besides me. Maybe. I hope.

Next up is #2 overall seed Maryland, which will be easily the best team Brown has played this year. The “Terrapins” (basically a bitchy turtle) have racked up an impressive 17-1-2 record in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which some experts have deigned to suggest is more competitive than the Ivy League. (The previous sentence assumes that 1) there are college soccer “experts” and 2) that if there were, they would ever bother to compare the hyper-competitive ACC with a league that includes intramural-quality teams masquerading as varsity teams, like Penn and Columbia.) [Read more →]

Captains Ryan McDuff ’13 and Eric Robertson ’13

Alright, so originally this column was supposed to hit every one of our sports teams, and not be the OMG GUYS BROWN SOCCER column, but OMG GUYS BROWN SOCCER!!! Unfortunately, due to a late season-collapse bad luck and bullshit officiating, Brown has tumbled a bit down the rankings, and will have to play its NCAA opener on the road, TOMORROW AT 4 P.M. AT DREXEL. Obviously, I’m not saying you should drive to Philadelphia for the game, but just be aware it’s happening. If you are so inclined, there will be a Gametracker play-by-play feature as well as live streaming video of the game available. Here’s a quick preview from someone who knows literally nothing about soccer, especially Drexel soccer:

[Read more →]