Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Tourney Treats:

Tourney Treats: Play the cool name game with Brice Massamba and Chace Stanback

Deuce Bello

Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun

Baylor guard Deuce Bello shoots free throws during practice before the second round of the NCAA basketball tournament Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at The Pit in Albuquerque.

Click to enlarge photo

UNLV seniors Brice Massamba, Oscar Bellfield and Chace Stanback head to the bench during a time out in their game against at the Mountain West Conference tournament Friday, March 9, 2012 at the Thomas & Mack Center. New Mexico won 72-67 and will face San Diego State in the championship game.

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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