Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Road Trip (2 of 20)- March Madness Journey from Kansas to Utah





We have not had an entry to this blog series since we started it on Feb. 16, 2011, but in our second installment here we will let you guess the driving distance between Kansas State's hometown of Manhattan, Kan., and Utah State's campus in Logan, Utah.

Now to make this EVEN more confusing, we are not going with the distance between the schools themselves. Instead, we have chosen to go with Hamilton Steakhouse in Logan and Kite's Bar in Manhattan (Kan.)instead.

As for the schools, Utah State is nicknamed the Aggies (as is another NCAA tourney-bound school Texas A & M), and they are one of 18 schools in the men's basketball tournament with women's gymnastics programs.

Lyndsie Boone (pictured above), a senior from Winthrop Hills, Ill., was recently named Aggies' student-athlete of the week. Boone, who has a 3.7 GPA, will join her teammates in the last regular season meet which is the WAC Championships in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday.

As for the men's basketball team, which had a 30-3 record this year, Brockeith Pane, a junior from Dallas, Tex., was (like Boone) recently named Aggies' athlete of the week as well.

Utah State also offers a dairy-processing degree program, and one can find the Aggie Ice Cream Shop, which offers ice cream in 26 different flavors, according to a story that was posted on mentalfloss.com today.

As for Kansas State, the school is mostly known athletically for its men's basketball program, which has been to the Final Four four times. The Wildcats are known for their fiery basketball coach Frank Martin (pictured here, we don't know what the story here is either!) and the team features several stand-out players. including Freddy Aspirilla who is from Colombia.

But, there are only two Wildcats' players who are actually from Kansas, including Victor Ojeleye from Ottawa, Kan., and Alex Potuzak from Clyde, Kan.

Kansas State is one of the very few schools in the NCAA with just one official color that is purple. And, they are one of 12 teams in the 2011 men's basketball tournament which feature some of sort of feline nickname (others include the Clemson Tigers and the Penn State Nittany Lions).

So, here is our question:

Just how long does it take to get from Logan, Utah, to Manhattan, Kan.?

Is the answer:

A) 14 hours even
B) 15 hours even
C) 16 hours even
D) 18 hours even

The answer to our last road trip quiz was B) as it takes 85 hours and 20 minutes to get from North Pole, Alaska, to Key West, Florida. Now, that is one long trip!

As for the game between Kansas State and Utah State, it will tip off on Thursday night at 9:57 p.m. New York time from Tucson, Ariz. The Wildcats are a 5-seed and the Aggies are a 12-seed.

I sense personally that this will be a close game, in which the Wildcats will prevail by six points.

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