College Game Day Tweets (Mostly Women's Gymnastics): The Bruins Hit the Road; the Heels Stay Home

1) Samantah Peszek (pictured, a UCLA gymnast): "It's a travel day for the bruins. Off to NoCal we go." (posted Thurs.)

2) VCU Athletics (Men's basketball team has 11:00 a.m. vs. cross-town rival Richmond): "Be early. Be loud. Wear Black. Wreck HAVOC. Let's Go VCU!

3) West Virginia U Gymnastics: "We host our pink meet Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Coliseum!"

4) Kansas Women's Basketball: "Kwbb hopes to continue its Red Raider dominance in Lubbock, Tex. tomorrow"

5) UNC Gymnastics: "Carmichael Arena is ready and waiting for tonight's meet vs. Pitt! Come cheer us on at 7:00......free admission" (Meet will be televised live on ESPN3).

6) Penn State Gymnastics: "Excited for another BUS trip to Columbus, Ohio, tomorrow." (Posted Thurs.)

7). Florida Gators Gymnastics: "When combined rank of teams is less than the ticket-price- that's a deal! No2 Gators vs. #1 Oklahoma. Tix: $5"

http://www.collegegymfans.com

Sports Desk: Penn State Goes over the Hills and through the Woods to win at Iowa State in women's gymnastics

Gathering from the photos we saw from the Penn State women's gymnastics team, the Nittany Lions had quite a trek to Ames, Iowa, where they faced Iowa State in the first major NCAA meet of the season in women's college gymnastics.

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, we could see the team's photos of snowy places, such as West Virginia, as they journeyed to middle of the Hawkeye State in what is normally and presumably a 15-hour drive.

Thanks to two LSU transfers, juniors Randi Lau of Hawaii and Sidney Sanabria-Robles (the image is of Penn State gymnast Sharaya Musser who graduated last year), Penn State edged out a 193.925-193.550 win over the home mat Cyclones.

Lau's outstanding 9.825 performance on the vault was crucial for the visitors. Lau also tied for second in the all-around with Sanabria-Robles.

For the Cyclones, Caitlin Brown, a stand-out junior, won the all-around with a career-best 38.900; Brown also won the balance beam for the home team.

SIDEBAR: Back on Dec. 22, Penn State's women's volleyball won their fifth NCAA title in seven years in Seattle. The Nittany Lions faced their surprising Big 10 Conference Rival Wisconsin Badgers in the title game. The Badgers shocked the college volleyball world by upsetting then-defending NCAA champs in Texas in the semi-finals.

Senior Deja McClendon, from Louisville, Ky., delivered the game-winning kill which propelled Penn State to win the match 3-1.

SIDEBAR TWO: Lastly on New Year's Day, it was a grand Rose Bowl for the Michigan State Spartans football team as they pulled a slight and narrow 24-20 upset over Stanford in Pasadena, Calif. Spartans quarterback Connor Crook, a sophomore, threw for a career high 332-yards win in the victory for the Big Ten champions.

Best Tweets of the Night

Greetings from Coffin Gulch, Nebraska (this is a fictional town in the cartoon version of the famed 'French cowboy' Lucky Luke, and no we are not in Nebraska).

Here is a look at some nifty tweets from Saturday night. We should point that in no way are we suggesting that Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is a far left radical like Angela Davis (pictured here), in fact, this is a center-left blog. And, our views on gun control are likely to cost us readers in Coffin Gulch.

Here are a rundown of the tweets, circa 6:00 p.m. in Coffin Gulch, Nebraska (for the sake of clarity full names are given):

1) PSU Gymnastics @ PennStWGym (Penn State Women's Gymnastics): Madison Merrian hit her foot hard on the bar we'll see how she is (Merrian had a 9.8 earlier in the meet on vault in a home meet versus Minnesota, Kent State and Towson).

2) Donna Brazile @donnabrazile: "As a black woman, we have gone through so much with our hair. So, let it roll. Curl it or wear it natural: What you say?"

3) Shannon Wheeler @MuchCoffee (Mr. Wheeler is a cartoonist in Portland, Ore.): "Happy gun day."

4) Trample by Turtles @tbtduluth (TBT is a popular folk, rock band): "I think we should spend winters in AZ."

5) Huffington Post @HuffingtonPost: "Booboo the grizzly bear cub is safe and sound." (Yeah, we are wondering about the details ourselves!)

6) VCU Ram Nation @VCURamNation (VCU is a college basketball team in Richmond, Va., they were winning by a large margin over JMU tonight in men's basketball): "Juvonte Reddic with another bucket in the paint.

7) Michigan Hockey @umichhockey: The Lakers tie it up with just over a minute left in the first period 1-1. (Michigan's men's hockey team is on the road tonight @ Lake Superior State, the Wolverines beat the Lakers 6-4 on Friday night).

http://www.collegegymfans.com

No Turkish Bride_It Was an April Fool's Joke

It is time to come clean and admit that I am NOT marrying a woman I met on the Internet named Sibel Turkan Atasoy who lives in Afyon, Turkey. She is a fictional name, and if any woman, living in Afyon, Turkey, or elsewhere actually has that name we will be floored.

I took the middle name from the great Turkish actress Turkan Soray.

I must also profess that I was April Fooled myself as University of Utah Utes gymnastics coach proclaimed that his team had landed the top gymnast in the world on collegegymnasts.com.

Interestingly enough, we asked Bing who was the top-ranke gymnast in the world and they said Sharaya Musser. She happens to be a highly-accomplished gymnast at Penn State, but we are 99-percent sure that she is not actually the 'best in the world.'

I guess this means so much for the power of search engines!

CollegesNicknames- The Felines

Today's list features schools with feline nicknames; they include Princeton University, Montana State and Vermont (all three are pictured here).

One team that is on this list, the Kentucky Wildcats are virtually assured of a number-one seed in the NCAA torunament.

Since we like to make fun of Provo, Utah (it is presumably the most politically conservative place in America), we thought we'd include the Brigham Young Cougars as a goodwill gesture.

Three of these schools, Penn State, Pitt and Lafayette are in Pennsylvania.

Here are the schools:

1. BYU Cougars, West Coast Conference, Provo, Utah

2. Clemson Tigers, ACC, Clemson, SC

3. Columbia Lions, Ivy, New York, New York

4. High Point University Panthers, Big South, High Point, NC

5. Idaho State Bengals, Big Sky, Pocatello, Ida.

6. Kentucky Wildcats, SEC, Lexington, Ky.

7. Lafayette Leopards, Patriot, Easton, Pa.

8. Montana State Bobcats, Big Sky, Bozeman, Mont.

9. Penn State Nittany Lions, Big Ten, State College, Pa.

10. Pitt Panthers, Big East, Pittsburgh, Pa.

11. Priceton Tigers, Ivy, Princeton, NJ

12. Vermont Catamounts, America East, Burlington, Vt.

Sports Desk- Women's NCAA Volleyball Tourney Begins

The Liberty University Flames will have its hands full as the team from Lynchburg, Va., heads up to University Park, Pa., to face four-time defending NCAA champion Penn State on the Nittany Lions' home floor in the women's volleyball match-up on Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m. For the team, one of the players to watch will be Micha Hancock, the Big 10 Freshman of the Year.

The seedings were announced on Sunday; Liberty is the only Virginia team which made the field of 64. But, the ACC was represented well as four teams made the field, including the Duke BlueDevils, a team that will face the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on Dec. 1st at 7:00 p.m. The game could be the most anticipated one of the first round.

The BlueDevils' team features Ali McCurdy, the ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and her high school teamate from Tampa, Kellie Catanach as well as blocker Chritiana Gray. While the 'Vols have SEC Player of the Year Kelsey Robinson on their team roster.

Other games of interest in the first round include the University of Arizona's game with Michigan State. The Wildcats have libero Emily Helm and Czech hitter Marketa Hanzlova on its roster.

Both the PAC-12 and the Big 10 got many teams in the tournament. Arizona joins UCLA, Stanford, Oregon and California in the field. While the Big 10 has a staggering eight teams, including two top seeds in Illinois and Nebraska.

Among those teams will be the University of Michigan; they play Baylor in Palo Alto, Calif., on Dec. 2 at 4:30 p.m. (eastern time). The Wolverines feature outstanding players in Claire McElheny and Lexi Erwin (we believe she is the player featured in the above image). While the Bears' team includes stand-out Briana Tolbert, a senior from Houston.

Another potentially competitive first-round game appears to be the University of Florida's match with the University of Missouri in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (at Northern Iowa University). One of the Gators' top players Chloe Mann is actually from Gainesville, where the school is located.

Many games are expected to be televised on ESPNU.

SIDEBAR: Since we presume folks in England are mad about soccer, and the United Kingdom is one country where we get many hits, I thought would give a brief run-down of weekend soccer scores from the English Premiere League. The Tottenham Spurs continue to be on a roll as they beat West Bromwich 3-1.

Here is a partial list of the weekend games with their final scores; Manchester City remains five points ahead of cross-town rival Manchester United in the league standings:

Liverpool 1 Manchester City 1
Stoke City 3 Blackburn 1
Chelsea 3 Wolverhampton 0
Manchester United 1 Newcastle 1
Arsenal 1 Fulham 1