FanHouse Mississippi State

March started days ago. The Madness started Wednesday night.

On an evening where bubble teams could've punched their ticket to the NCAA tournament and boosters could've started humming bars of "One Shining Moment," teams turned down invitations like they were to a wedding without an open bar or the People's Choice Awards.

A memo, fellows. This isn't an invitation to a candlelight dinner with Randy Johnson. "Big Dance" doesn't mean you're cutting a rug with Mark Madsen or waltzing cheek-to-cheek with Mike Tyson.

You actually want to go to this thing.

'Croom' is a verb. The dictionary says so:

Croom: kroom /hyu?m?li?e?t or, often, yu-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kr-oom] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –verb (used with object), -ed, ·ing. to cause (a person) a painful loss of pride, self-respect, or dignity; mortify the fans and administration of an opposing SEC football team, resulting in the removal or firing of their head coach [Origin: 2004–05; < LL humili?tus (ptp. of humili?re to humble), equiv. to L humili(s) humble + -?tus -ate1, see Mississippi State vs. Florida, Ron Zook; Mississippi State vs. Alabama, Mike Shula] -Related forms hu·mil·i·a·tor, noun hu·mil·i·a·to·ry /hyu?m?li??t?ri, -?to?ri or, often, yu-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hyoo-mil-ee-uh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee or, often, yoo-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation, hu·mil·i·a·tive, adjective -Synonyms dishonor, disgrace, shame; degrade, abase, debase. See humble. -Antonyms exalt, honor, contract extension.

Sylvester Croom's three years at Mississippi State have been remarkable similar: in each of his football campaigns, he's managed a total of three wins with a major upset thrown in two out of three times.

The upsets have been so massive that by winning, the opposing coach ends up Croomed. Evidence: Ron Zook was canned after the Gators lost to Croom's Dogs in 2004, and Mike Shula didn't survive 2006 at Bama after losing to Mississippi State in Tuscaloosa.

After the jump: who might be Croomed in 2007?

The NIT's an easy target for ridicule (as you'll see when some team wins it and the clever "We're #66!" headlines make their annual appearance), but I'm choosing to be a glass-is-half-full guy about it. The teams on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble are, in many cases, playing some very good basketball.

Mississippi State found a way to bottle up future lottery pick Al Thornton, and whooped Florida State by 15. It wasn't so much a bottling up, actually, as just finding a way to keep him off the floor. Thornton got in early foul trouble and played just 22 minutes.

For their trouble, they'll get to play West Virginia, who beat NC State in Morgantown, 71-66. Senior Frank Young had 25 in his last game at the Coliseum, burying threes in peoples' grills all night long. He set the record for career three-pointers by a Mountaineer, and got a pretty nice compliment from NC State's Gavin Grant, the poor sap assigned to guard him:

"I'm in his shirt and he still made one," Grant said of Young. "They made big, crazy shots. They deserved to win."

The Bulldogs and Mountaineers will meet next Tuesday at the Garden (time still to be determined). The other two quarterfinals, Syracuse vs. Clemson, and Air Force vs. DePaul, are tomorrow night.

Score one for the Bayou Bengals. It has been announced that LSU will play Mississippi State in a rare early season SEC league match to kick off the 2007 season. LSU coach Les 'The Hat' Miles can be seen to the right celebrating with one of the moves from Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video. To the surprise of nobody the game will be televised on ESPN Thursday August 30.

ESPN notes that this "continues a tradition" - started last year. Oy.

The Bulldogs were woeful in a 15-0 shutout loss to South Carolina in last year's opener. The game's MVP was Gamecock punter Ryan Succop which says about all you need to know for how that game went. Both starting quarterbacks were knocked out of action early leaving hapless backups to carry already pedestrian offenses through the remaining game action. The game's real drama was in the supposed confiscation of MSU's famous cowbells. Of little surprise many fans snuck the devices into the stadium making a mockery of the policy.

Although without the services of departed quarterback JaMarcus Russell, LSU is a strong favorite to win in a romp here. At least we can save the date, so to speak. I'm just going to pretend there aren't well over six more months until college football. Because if I knew that to be true I'd cry in misery. And I'm not in the mood for misery.

Anyhoo ... the reasoning escapes me at the moment, but those kickoff classic type games were eliminated a year or two ago, robbing college football fans of some great early season shows. Off the top of my head I remember Penn State's Curtis Enis torching the USC defense a while back, I remember the wild Cal/Kansas State shootout that the Bears lost but signaled something positive for the Jeff Tedford era. I remember Reggie Bush scoring three touchdowns against Virginia Tech in a game that catapulted him onto the national stage.

It'd be nice to have that type of game back. Y'know, compelling national matchups and all? Early season battle of titans. This is nice but it's just another SEC league game played out three weeks premature.

Until the fun games return it's LSU/Mississippi State starting the season off with more of a whimper than a bang. But I'll take it, it's football. Just around the corner. Riiiiiight.