Call it the Elite Eight. The Lady Commie Heavy Ballers are among eight teams invited to the 2009 NCAA Bowling Championship in Detroit April 9-11.
It's not the first time. This will be the fourth straight appearance for the Commodores, who won it all in 2007. That's them at the White House with the former Bowler-in-Chief, who during the visit may or may not have made references to the Special Olympics.
The other teams in this year's tournament are Arkansas State, Fairleigh Dickinson, Delaware State, Maryland-Eastern Shore, Nebraska, Central Missouri and New Jersey City.
Maybe you're wondering how many collegiate women's bowling teams even exist. Glad you asked. There are 59 — 32 of them are Division I but D-2 and D-3 teams are eligible too. In fact, Central Missouri is D-2 and New Jersey City is D-3.
Though the Lady Commie Heavy Ballers are undoubtedly a powerhouse, it never hurts when you have somebody on the selection committee. Vanderbilt Associate Director of Athletics Brian Reese is the Chairman of the NCAA Bowling Committee.
"We take a wide variety of statistics into account including head-to-head meetings, strength of schedule and won-loss records," he said in a press release. "This year the difference among the so-called bubble teams was very small as the number of quality teams in collegiate bowling continues to grow."
And when only eight out of 59 teams get a bid, you've got a lot of bubble teams. So stop whining, Jeff Lebo (coach of the Auburn men hoopsters, among the last teams to be rejected for the NCAA's field of 64).
Anyway, the championship game will be shown live on ESPN2 on April 11. If Vanderbilt makes it to the finals, that'd be a pretty good excuse to wear loose clothing and drink lots of beer, wouldn't it?
By the way, what do think of the name Lady Commie Heavy Ballers? Believe it or not, it didn't take us very long to think that one up.
3 comments:
I got way too into this TV appearance when I stumbled across it in a 2007 hangover. I was quickly on my feet screaming for any sort of national championship. I can't even remember who we beat, but it was definitely a school I had never heard of. Look at me, calling our ladies bowling team "we". I'm so glad to see they're a dominant force. Anyway, I just wanted to say "Lady Commie Heavy Ballers" is way too long of a name, and no lady wants to be "heavy" anything. Too many words, and borderline marxist. I hereby submit the "Golden Rollers".
I hope we beat the crap out of the Fareleigh-Dickinson Secret Talents, or the Delaware State Lonely Obsessions.
By the way, do we have a men's bowling team? Or is this the sport that offsets our football team under the NCAA requirement for an equal number of men's and women's teams?
Nice try, but I think Golden Rollers makes them sound elderly which may or may not be better than borderline marxist. No, we don't have a men's bowling team. Yes, it probably has something to do with Title IX. Also, I think the university wanted to add a sport in which it could immediately challenge for a national championship and so they recruited a some young ladies from Jersey and Chicago and the rest is history.
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