Opinion- East Coast Bias

Hi all,

Thank God that its spring break because I am so tired of school right now. So many assignments, so much to do, people to see, etc. I’m just happy that I get some time off just to chill, hang out, and literally not do anything. Haven’t been able to do that in ages.

Just want to talk about college basketball briefly right now. First of all, how is Villanova ranked ahead of us (Arizona) now? They have the same record as us but have almost no significant wins that make them a top 3 school. Just goes to show everyone that east coast bias that the entire country has towards pretty much every sport.

Look at every college sport that is shown on ESPN. Which teams always get the most coverage compared to the others? Florida, Syracuse, UConn, UNC, freaking Duke, freaking Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Kentucky, do I really need to continue? And which schools do they show from the west coast? Pretty much just USC, UCLA, Oregon and occasionally Arizona. Doesn’t even matter which sport it is, its like pretty much 90% east coast schools. When was the last time a Texas school was on ESPN (besides anything about Johnny Manziel)? Not since 2005 when UT won the national championship. That was 9 years ago. What about Washington? They’re pretty much solid at every sport. Us? Same thing (look out for men’s tennis vs. Washington on PAC-12 networks coming up in a few weeks. Had to let the world know. Go cats.), solid at everything, exceptional at others. But they’ll play Kentucky football (who we all know is absolutely HORRIBLE at football, might as well cut the program if you’re losing to Western Kentucky who’s in the Sun Belt and you’re an SEC team) over Washington football, who is consistently a ranked and well-respected program.

Anyway that’s my sports rant of the week. Stay tuned for more as March Madness gets closer!

Bear Down

Arizona Men's Tennis vs. Utah State

Hi guys,

Like last time, I am writing this blog entry from McKale Center. Two hours ago, the men’s tennis team defeated Utah State by a score of 4-3. This may seem like a close match, but in my opinion, it was not as close as it sounds. Before I go any further, let me quickly go over how college tennis scoring works.

The actual scoring of a collegiate tennis match is the same as a professional tennis match- best of three sets for singles and one extended set to eight for doubles. Advantage scoring, the usual love, fifteen, thirty, forty, game, etc. are also used for each match. In order to win a match as a team, one team must win four matches out of the seven possible points. Six of those points are singles matches, while three doubles matches are played for the lone doubles point.

Today, we won the doubles point after Kieren Thompson and Trevor James won their match 8-2 on court 3 and Sumeet Shinde and Naoki Takeda won on court one 8-5. In singles play, Thompson won his match convincingly 6-0 6-2 on court one, Trevor James winning 6-1 6-0 on court six, and Naoki Takeda winning on court three 6-3 6-1. Matt Dunn lost his match 6-3 6-1 on court five, while Mario Urquidi lost in a close three set match on court four and Sumeet Shinde losing in a close match as well on court two.

Overall, the match was a good fight and everyone had a strong, positive attitude all across the board. The Wildcats take on Fresno State on Saturday and St. Mary’s on Sunday.

Bear Down!

Introduction

Hi everyone,

My name is Ben Lee, and I am here blogging to you from the University of Arizona, specifically the study rooms in McKale Center. In this first blog post, I would like to just introduce myself and give a brief background as to where I am from and what has led me to currently be at the U of A. I’ll try not to be too boring :P

I am from New Canaan, CT. It’s a small town of roughly 20,000 people lying 30-45 minutes outside of New York City (depending on if you’re an aggressive or defensive driver- I take 30). Unlike most people from my town, I do not come from an ultra-rich household, I don’t live in a seven bedroom 25,000 sq./ft. home, and neither of my parents are CEO’s of some hedge fund the way my classmates at New Canaan High School might have grown up. My family lives comfortably in New Canaan, in a quaint house on the east side of town near Norwalk, CT, sitting tucked into some forest on a few acres.

I graduated from high school in 2010 and got recruited by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette on a tennis scholarship. I really loved Lafayette- awesome people, incredible food, and an awesome college town atmosphere. But unfortunately, the coach that recruited me ended up being a real jerk meanie (keeping things PG).  So I decided to transfer.

In August of 2012, I transferred to the University of Arizona where I am currently attending school, where I can proudly say that I play tennis for the Arizona Wildcats!