Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun
Wednesday, March 14, 2012 | 2:43 p.m.
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ALBUQUERQUE — What’s in a name?
Letters. Maybe an apostrophe. That was a dumb question.
ESPN’s Page 2 is searching for the coolest name in the NCAA Tournament, a contest I fully endorse. Their field of 64 includes two Rebels — 10-seed Brice Massamba and 7-seed Chace Stanback — and nine total student-athletes who are in Albuquerque this week, plus San Diego State’s Xavier Thames, in case you wanted to show some Mountain West love.
Out of the Portland region, I like 3-seed Deuce Bello (Baylor) 5-seed Festus Ezeli (Vanderbilt) to make deep runs. Colorado could probably field the best name starting five in the country as both Beau Gamble and Sabatino Chen have legitimate beefs about their exclusion from the field.
Here is some other name-related nonsense:
• Colorado is the country’s only team with two first-name Beaus, while Baylor boasts the nation’s lone double Quincy lineup.*
*Probably
• If the contest included a nickname region, UNLV’s Carlos Lopez “Rufio” would get a top-8 seed, as would Harvard senior guard Oliver McNally, so long as his teammates have the good sense to refer to him as Rand.
• South Dakota State has the only Rabbit-related mascot in Division I. Cheers to creativity.
Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.
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