Although I tried to avoid annoying Clarkson fans with my post a few days back,
it seems that I have.  I think my 19 years of marriage have refined my
unintentional tick-off skills. :-)  Since Bri's sig has a direct quote from my
post, I'd just like to clarify my thoughts.
 
The sentence which seems to have hit a nerve (the latter of which made it into
Bri's sig) was:
 
"No dissing Clarkson here, but Lake Superior has got
  to be the team everyone is looking at."
 
I did try to avoid any Clarkson annoyance, although in that respect I
apparently was ineffective.
 
But is Lake Superior "the team everyone is looking at"?  I would submit that
they are.  Of all of the 12 teams in The Tourney, they are *The Story*.  Any
team that has won the national championship two of the last three years (and
went to the finals the other year), appeared dead-in-the-water midseason but
Bela Legosi-ed itself into the tourney by virtue of going something like 15-1-1
down the stretch including winning five games in roughly ten days of their
conference tournament to win their conference and get the invite, to my mind
becomes "the team everyone is looking at."
 
They are The Story in a way that BU, which has been near the top all season
long, is not.  They are The Story in a way that Maine, which was number one
for most of the season but has shown signs that they may be fading, is not.
They are the most intimidating number five seed in recent memory.
 
And of course the potential of a rematch with BU only adds to The Story.  It
seemed the ultimate irony that as a result of BU getting the number one seed
it got LSSU ("The Boogeyman" in my post) in its bracket.  Because of last
year's final, a BU-LSSU contest would be a Bigger Deal than BU-Clarkson, or
BU-UNH, BU-Denver, or even BU-Maine (a pretty intense rivalry there).
 
Although I'm not backing down from my comments that Lake State is the team
that everyone is looking at and that they are deserving of the attention,
that's not to say that Clarkson doesn't have a real shot.  I have a wager with
someone over whether Lake State makes it to Providence.  I established it as
3-1 odds based on them having a 60% chance of beating Clarkson and a 40% chance
of beating BU.  (In my estimation, although BU and LSSU would be roughly equal
BU will have the fresh legs, which IMO proved to be the difference in a
negative way last year for UMass-Lowell and IMO could be the deciding factor
this year.)  So establishing Clarkson as having a 40% shot against the hottest
team in the country would indicate that I *do* respect Clarkson and have *not*
assumed LSSU will just waltz into a BU rematch.  (Aside to BU fans: if there is
a rematch, I'll still be rooting for BU despite my wager for LSSU.)
 
Now at this point in my marital "recover from unintended tick-off" I'd say,
"Hey, I really didn't mean to get you upset, let's get along and go to bed"
but in this case I'll just say, "Hey, I really didn't mean to get you upset."
:-)  :-)
 
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* Dave Hendrickson "Robo" [log in to unmask] *     *'     ##     '*
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* not Hewlett-Packard's.                            *     *,     ##     ,*
*****************************************************        '-*******-'