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.

College Volleyball Notebook: Four to Watch: Minnesota Hosts Radford

If you include Chicago traffic, a drive from Radford, Va., to Minneapolis is about 20.5 hours, and that journey passes through Madison, Wisc., another host city in the first round of the NCAA tourney.

The Radford University Highlanders will be in Minneapolis to face the Minnesota Gophers on Friday. Two of the stand-out players for both teams include Rachel Wiecchecki (pictured top), a junior who guided RU to a Big South championship, for the Highlanders, and Tori Dixon (pictured bottom) , a member of the all Big-10 Conference Team who has also overcome open heart surgery, for the Gophers.

Here are Four Games to Watch on Friday, all times are eastern

Radford @ Minnesota 8:00 p.m.

Florida State vs. Georgia Southern 5:00 p.m. Gainesville, Fla.

The FSU Seminoles feature two all-ACC team members in Ashley Neff and Katie Mosher

Purdue vs. Central Arkansas at the University of Missouri

Purdue's outside hitter /setter Val Michael, a junior, was named to the all-Big 10 team

Michigan State vs. Ohio University

The MSU Spartans feature Kori Moster, the Big 10's defensive player of the year.

 For more games in the tourney, go to our sister blog:

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

http://www.ruhighlanders.com

http://www.purduesports.com

http://www.msuspartans.com
.

My NCAA Brackets....I'm Picking Those Pesky Wildcats

I haven't seen what every single one of my friends is projecting for the NCAA final, but I am inclined to agree with both President Barack Obama and ESPN college basketball commentator Dick Vitale that Kentucky and North Carolina will meet for the championship game.

But, even though I am a Democrat who lives in North Carolina and a Tarheels fan (ok, I'm a band-wagoner_Virginia Tech is the team I have been rooting for 95-percent of my life), I have to agree with Vitale that the Kentucky Wildcats will prevail.

Assuredly, if this does come true, actress Ashley Judd, an unabashed Wildcats fan and UK alumnus will be very happy.

In my Final Four, I am also projecting Florida State to win the east region, Michigan State to win the west region, to complete the brackets.

The four teams I have in the Elite 8 are Duke (South; losing to Kentucky), Missouri (West; losing to Michigan State), Kansas (Midwest; losing to UNC) and Syracuse (East; losing to FSU).

In the first round of games which start tomorrow, I am picking the following upsets: In the south, I am picking Colorado (#11) to upset UNLV (#6); in the west, I like Davidson (#13) over Louisville (#4); in the east, I like Harvard (#12) over Vanderbilt (#5) and lastly, in a tough call, in the west, I am going with North Carolina State (#11) over San Diego State (#6).

In addition, I am picking one nine-seed St.Louis to beat an eight-seed Memphis, in the west. And, conversely, I like the ten-seed West Virginia over seven-seed Gonzaga (east region) and ten-seed Purdue over seven-seed St. Mary's (midwest region).

SIDEBAR: Quite a few of the 68 schools in the tournament (well, technically it is now 66 as of this writing), have nationally-ranked teams in other sports. There are four tournament schools with Top-20 men's hockey teams (Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame and Harvard). Similarly, there are seven schools with Top-25 women's gymnastics teams (Florida, Alabama, Ohio State, Missouri, North Carolina State, Michigan and Kentucky). In addition, there are four NCAA tournament teams with top-20 teams in women's water polo (San Diego State, Michigan, Indiana and Long Beach State).

SIDEBAR 2: We want to congratulate Lori Anne Madison, age 6, of Woodbridge, Va., for being the youngest person ever to reach the finals of the National Spelling Bee. For her sake, we hope she isn't asked how to spell "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (yes, that "Mary Poppins" term is now in the dictionary!...we believe).

Apparently, We're NOT Back on the Air...

Achtung! I knew things were too good to be true. After 15 or 16 tries, we have decided to post this entry meant for our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" here instead.

If/when we get the chance, we will simply post 'silly photos' on that blog so it can catch up with this one, and hopefully that will happen soon.

While we are at it, we wanted to mention four college radio stations and their unique programs.

First of, I wanted to start with WUVT/90.7-FM, the student-run station at Virginia Tech where I co-hosted a Turkish music show in 1994. Today, DJ Cigdem is one of the show's hosts. And, this afternoon, she played an interesting mix on her show "The Turkish Music Hour" which runs from 1:00-2:30 p.m. (local time) including a song by the late Turkish rocker Baris Manco (1943-1999).

Amazingly enough, Manco had a following in Japan of all places! He was also known as 'the man who sang about vegetables" as one of his songs, the mid-80s pop hit "Domates, Biber, Patlican," means "Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants." It wound much better in Turkish!

Down the road, in Raleigh, NC, WKNC/88.1-FM, the student-run station at North Carolina State, which was playing one of my favorite songs "Nothing But Flowers" by Talking Heads when we last checked in, features "Chainsaw Rock." The heavy metal show runs on Wednesday and Thursday nights starting at midnight, and on Friday nights from 8:00 p.m.-midnight. They were the ones who introduced me to Greek Heavy Metal (?!) which was made popular by a band called Rotting Christ. I imagine they will probably not be playing in Tulsa, Okl., anytime soon.

When we were in Athens, Ga., last week, we checked out the local University of Georgia student-run station WUOG-FM.; they were playing jazz great Chuck Mangione- of all people- when were listening. While researching this piece, we were happy to discover that the '70s soft jazz icon who was born in 1940 is alive and well. On Sundays, the station has a show called "Bluegrass Junction" which plays a combination of bluegrass and folk music. It airs at 4 p.m.

Lastly, for Asian music fans, Michigan State's student run station Impact 89 features a show called "Asian Invasion," airing at 8:00 p.m., which will undoubtedly educate you about the world of Japanese and Korean pop (presumably!).

The image above is from the late comedian Soupy Sales who died at age 83 in 2009. Whenever I have a tech glitch with a computer, I feel as if someone is throwing a pie in my face too!

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- Heavy Rains to Hit Carolina Coast

According to a tweet from Eyewitness News-11 in Raleigh, NC, the coastal town of Wilmington, NC, is getting prepared for two days of nonstop rain as a tropical depression over the east coast will likely ram into rain system shifting west.

Simply put, this might mean if you live in that area, you may as well prepare to do your best Gene Kelly impersanation because, like it or not, you will be 'singing in the rain.'

Stephen Keebler of the National Weather Service in Wilmington told the news outlet that the next few days would be tough ones for the lower coastal regions of the Carolinas.

Heavy rains are also expected in Raleigh, Charlotte and Greensboro as well as cities like Danville, Va., and Fort Mill, SC, which both border the Tarheel State.

Officials in Wilmington recorded 10.33 inches of rain at the Wilmington Airport on Monday according to News 11, which is the most since 1999.

The report also said Charleston, SC, has been hit hard by the storms.

SIDEBAR: Well, our unofficial 'High School of Week' is back even though we have neglected it for some two and a half weeks. Our official 'High School of the Week' will hopefully be named on Friday.

For today, we are going with Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Mich.,known as The Purple Pride, which is the alma mater of historical documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and punk rock legend Iggy Pop. We imagine they have little else in common.

My Cousin Mike Picked Butler to Make it to Final Four!

I must profess that I laughed at my cousin Michael, who is an alumnus of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, the school that beat my alma mater Radford University to win The Big South Tournament in Myrtle Beach (well, Conway, SC, is close enough) a few weeks ago, when he told me that he picked the Butler Bulldogs to make it to the Final Four.

I asked him point blank: "How would they beat Syracuse?"

He said: "I don't know. I just think they just will."

And, by a score of 73-69 Butler did just that!

My lone Final Four pick which made it to Indianapolis, where Butler is, happens to West Virginia University. I am especially happy for their Turkish basketball player Deniz Kilicli who made his debut for the Mountaineers this year (that is not him pictured here).

We are also happy for 'the local team,' The Duke University Blue Devils though I live some 90 miles away from Durham, NC, which is also home to the Durham Bulls minor league baseball team. Coach K's team downed Baylor this afternoon which had to have really ticked off a friend of mine in Wilmington, NC, because not only is he a Tarheels fan but he also had the Bears from Waco, Tex., in his Final Four!

The last team to make it is Michigan State. They beat the Tennessee Volunteers 70-69 while I was shopping at Pet-Smart. I almost adopted a kitten today, but there were a few complications. Oh well, there is a next year- well except for those players who are seniors or leaving college early to make a zillion bucks playing for a team like the Minnesota T-Wolves in the NBA.