Gray

So in titling this post I had to pause and decide if I should use 'grey' or 'gray'.  For some reason I'm much more partial to 'grey' but the "traditional american spelling" is 'gray' so we'll stick with that.

So in (approximately) 10 days and 22 hrs BYU will host (presumably) nationally ranked Oregon State in BYU's annual homecoming game.  This is a special game because BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall is a graduate and former assistant coach of Oregon St.  Also it will be the cougars first real test since barely loosing to Boise St. and the first of three huge and difficult games that make up the meat of BYU's schedule this year.

Finally, it is also the first time that BYU will not wear white, or blue as their primary color.  I'd like to say that BYU has been a uni-staple, but between 1999 and 2004 they went a little crazy with uniform ideas, but in 2005 settled back down into the tradition.  This month all that tradition gets a little tweaking with a (jumping on the bandwagon) black out.

In the uni-watching world we call this BFBS, and black for black's sake is generally frowned upon, as is grey for grey's sake, or pretty much using any color that isn't one of your team's official colors.  But I don't care, these uniforms are gonna rock.  Why? because I said so.  While this comes as a surprise, it's not quite as jaw-dropping since the idea was leaked back in April.

All this thought of BYU uniforms makes me want to compile an awesome database of their uniforms... but for now I'll leave you with the beautiful pictures of BFBS.

You're probably wondering why I called this post Gray, well it's because of this beauty.  That grey with the blue!  ohh it is soooo good!!! I LOVE IT!  if they did one thing right here, it's the use of grey.  boom.

Oil

For some reason I love this logo, like a lot.

For those of you who don't know about former NFL teams, this is the logo of the (since moved to Tennessee,) Houston Oilers (and being in Tennessee where there's no oil, the became the Titans... go figure).

The logo is just simple, nicely colored, and it says a lot about Houston, Texas, the oil industry, and the history of all those.  It's just cool, and you never see it around anymore because the new Houston football team chose worse colors and an ugly logo.  So I decided to memorial-ize the Houston oil derrick as a 3D sketch, 'cause I do that.

BOOM

I know, it's pretty cool, right?  I worked pretty  hard on that... ok, like 3 hours maybe.  It's actually a REALLY complicated structure to model without proper structural design software (I use a free google product).



On a completely unrelated note:  I was at wal*mart a couple weeks ago when I saw huge boxes of cereal on sale (huge as in almost 2 lbs).  I bought some not knowing that my wife wouldn't eat Reece's Puffs, and I didn't really think I'd get sick of them.... but 2 lbs of cereal last like a month!

Sunday Edition : Hymns

Today in church we sang four hymns that have strange but significant meaning to me personally. I thought it was pretty amazing that ALL of them I have a special (if not strange) connection to so I decided to write about it.

Three of the hymns have connections to my mission, first God Speed the Right. A line in this song, "If we fail we fail with glory" meant something to my MTC companion and he mentioned it a few times, in a testimony once I believe, so it always reminds me of him. Next was We Sing All Hail, which has a particular line, "... and bruised the serpent's head" which is in reference to God's promise to Satan given at the fall of Adam, "and he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (Moses 4:21) Meaning that Christ will have power over Satan. This line was brought to my attention by one of my favorite people in the MTC, and when I sing this song I always think of him. Finally, Gently Raise the Sacred Strain, became one of my favorite hymns in the middle of my mission when it mysteriously became stuck in my head, and I studied the words and learned so much about the importance of the sabbath day. I used the hymn as the basis for a wonderful talk I gave a few months later.

The fourth song we sang wasn't a mission related song, but has even more meaning.  #166, Abide with Me was sung as the closing hymn at my grandpa's funeral in January, 2006.  Since then I has been one of the most special hymns in my life, and I will never forget it's importance since I almost cry any time I sing it.

Po-po-police-ece-ece

So today the BYU Police Beat intern from the Daily Universe must have gotten back from summer vacation because they just tweeted a million and two police beat lines, dating way back to last year even.  Anyhow, if you don't follow them on twitter do so (if you don't have twitter do so first, and follow me while you're at it) it's quite funny to hear about the mischievous deeds committed on BYU campus.  

Today though as I watched the many, many tweets roll in I began thinking... why do they have a police beat?  So many of them are so ridiculous, and stupid, and pointless.  I remember while I was a student making fun of the campus police due to the stupid calls they had to respond to.  Today however I began to see that it's not the police that are stupid, it's the people calling in these things that are the idiots, and perhaps the police beat is being published to let people know that not every suspicious looking person is a rapist.

If you think about it, there are kids attending BYU who have just come from very dangerous places.  People who grew up in inner cities and/or downtowns of pretty much any large city will have been close to murders, rapes, gang fights, and all sorts of cray stuff.  Coming directly to happy valley, you might not realize that those things only happen once every few years in Provo.  A lot of people are paranoid and worried about these horrible things happening to them, but the BYU police beat is there reminding students every week, that those kids hiding under windows are probably playing hide & seek.  Here are some tweets from today that I think might be a hint to those paranoid people that you don't have to call everything into campus police.

• There was a call reporting two suspicious people sleeping on a sidewalk. Officers arrived and discovered they were not sleeping and were not on the sidewalk. They were lying on the grass talking to each other.
• A middle-aged man was reported laying in the grass with his shirt off outside Helaman Halls. The man was not breaking any laws so officers let him be.
• A person was reported to be lurking in the shadows at 67th and Wymount at 12am. It was a lost parent of a tenant.
• A female tenant looked out her kitchen window and saw a guy dressed in dark clothing staring back at her. Officers were called to the scene, but couldn’t locate anyone matching the description.

It seems to me that the police beat (while containing some useful information) is used primarily to try to get less pointless calls made to campus police, and also to get people to lock up their bikes (maybe double lock, and maybe take the front tire into your house).

Vacationeering

I've largely neglected writing on this blog over the summer, but that's only because everything I've done has been more of a family affair, and so Steph and I posted about our vacations on our family blog, http://smmurray.blogspot.com/

So check that out to see some of our amazing vacation photos.  :-)

Also I am getting really excited for college football season, just 16 more days... AHH!!

Major League

Over the weekend of June 8th-10th over 20,000 people gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center to watch people play games.  I was able to count myself among those present and got the chance not only to watch people play, but I did a little playing myself.

The event was the Major League Gaming (MLG) Spring Championship, with most of the focus on the Starcraft II tournament.  There were also tournaments for League of Legends, Mortal Kombat, and Soul Calibur V, as well as a North American Starcraft Championship sponsored by Blizzard.  All the games were streamed online for millions of viewers, but as an added bonus for those attending, there were playable demo stations for the new Starcraft II expansion game set to be released later this year (Heart of the Swarm).

Most of my attention was focused on the MLG tournament, watching games and playing HotS against my friends.  We were there for all of Saturday and watched the finals online Sunday afternoon.  It was a great experience something I would definitely do again.

I'm sorry for the lack of quality pictures.
It was fairly dark all over, so lighting was less than ideal.

A high view of the main viewing area.

Leading up to this I have been getting really into the pro-scene of starcraft.  There are certain celebrity  like players and commentators.  It was cool and weird to be so close to them because they are very much just normal people.  Also the best players are Korean and many of the don't speak much english so its not like you could talk to them much or anything, but whatever.

There are tons of games going on at any given moment, this is a row of computers facing each other where two players face off.  

The most important game going on (with highly seeded or more popular players) is put on the main stage.  The players are in those little lit booths at the front, the screens show to the audience what either player's screen looks like on the sides, and then the commentators screen in the middle.  The commentators (who's voiceover is heard, are actually in little booths of their own behind the stage) have access to information about both players units, production, mining, etc. basically everything needed to commentate and say who is probably ahead and say how engagements will end up.  If you're not familiar with Starcraft at all... I'll explain it sometime later.

The next two most important matches at a given moment are played on a semi-stage where there are no commentators, but you can see either player's screen above their head so you can watch the big battles, also you can watch close up their fingers on the keyboard and mouse and really watch them play.  That dyed haired Korean is MarineKingPrime (aka MKP, aka Lee Jung Hoon) the winner of MLG Winter championship.  Here at Spring he came in 3rd.

This is SK-MC (aka Jang Min Chul, aka The Boss-Toss) talking to his coach and getting ready for a game against Quanitic-SaSe (aka Kim Hammar, he's Sweedish).   MC recently won a Red Bull tournament, SaSe went to take 4th place here at MLG (and I said 'hi' to him).

This is EG-ThorZaIN (aka Marcus Eklöf, a Norwegian) who came out of nowhere a year ago and started winning tournaments.

And this is Grubby (aka Manuel Schenkhuizen, Dutch) one of the few pro-gammers not on a team.

The finals were super amazing!  Even though it was just back at our hotel with the 3 starcraft nerds, then a handfull of girls, we got them all to be a little interested.  We watched some of the quarters and then the semi final matches and everyone started rooting for certain players.  Alicia made an astonishing climb through the losers bracket to make it to the finals where he was pretty much crushed by DongRaeGu (aka DRG, aka Park Soo Ho).  We were mostly rooting for Alicia, but DRG was pretty awesome to watch since he really was just soooo good.

A great way to spend a weekend :-D

If you're still interested here's an article from Forbes.com about the event, including an infographic on viewership and attendance.  It's a big deal because at one point over 400,000 people were watching live or on the internet, which is more than many major tv programs that happend at the same time.

Ducks

Saturday morning we were camping near Provo with the Herds, and Saturday night we had dinner plans with some friends in Payson.  Naturally we didn't want to drive home so we decided to pass time hanging out at my Grandma Bu's house.  I hopped on the computer for a minute and on twitter I saw that BYUSA was holding a Ducky Derby that day.  What is a duck derby you ask... well, we didn't really know, but since we had nothing to do we decided to go.  

We arrived south of campus and began to under stand the meaning of Ducky Derby.  The stream that runs along the south edge of campus has been rehabilitated to be a beautiful walking path with rocks, waterfalls, and wonderful flora.

Also of course some wonderful fauna

So BYUSA was selling jDawgs and rubber ducks for eating and decorating.  People bought the ducks, drew on them, and then raced them down the river.  It was amazingly fun!!

Raphael and Polka

The racing was surprisingly exciting, everyone cheering on their ducks, getting excited as they passed others, and crying when they got stuck in a slow spot.  

placing the ducks

The Start 

Raphael in 1st pace...

eventual winner of our heat, The Cheat.

The Cheat, Polka, and The Missionary

Stephanie actually came in 2nd.  So we got a FREE Jamba Juice, and a chance to win again in the winners round at the end of the day for a BYU Bookstore gift card (and trophy)

Winner's Round

Movin' Groovin'

Real ducks getting in the way. 

Stephanie actually led the race in 1st place for most of it, then got stuck and fell to last place (about 14th)... but then came back to 5th place by the end.  Her duck must have been pretty stelar.

We then took our ducks back to the beginning of the stream and let them float along.  It took half an hour to do half of the stream... so we stopped there.

our ducks are amazing

Globes and Maps

"...and globes and maps they chart your way back home"  -Something Corporate

I like that song.

And speaking of songs vaguley related to traveling that I also like... A Plain Morning by Dashboard Conf.

Ok, now onto our présentation principale!

New desktop background!

After The Hunger Games had come and gone, I wanted to change my desktop background, but I had trouble coming up with a new theme.  I was tired enough of all the changing and rearranging of geeklets that I wanted to pick something that I could have for a while, something that wouldn't expire (you know, like when the movie came out or holiday passed, etc.).

I remembered that my very first attempt into geeklets was built on top of one of the default desktop backgrounds that comes with a mac (The Great Wave).  So I turned to that folder to find something simple, beautiful, and lasting.  Though I sorted through many amazing pictures, the black and white set stuck out to me and I chose two of those to be my backgrounds (since I have two monitors now).

The geeklets I arranged all on one screen (the secondary) so I could always see them.  The second screen has become somewhat of my status screen now, I look there to check the time, battery level, calendar and weather.

Pretty nice, eh?  

Now, my main screen was just this cool, lighting desktop picture that I never actually saw because I always had windows covering it.  However I got this idea in my head that I really wanted to try.  I wanted to make this apear on my desktop... so I did.  In case you're wondering it does auto-update every 15 minutes so it shows the current sunlight spread over the earth.  I felt so proud I uploaded it to the official geektool forum/geeklet sharing site.

See that, globe and map, in the flesh.. hence my title, and completely random opening.

cheap as free

I was scrolling through my past posts, and noticed that I last updated you on my desktop background before The Hunger Games came out.  Well it's been a while since it came out (I've even seen a new movie since then) and I have since updated my desktop background.

However before I tell you about that I have to go back in time and tell you about my current electronic situation.  Over the past years I've slowly been accumulating odds and ends that would make a great home office someday, and it had finally taken shape.

Most of these Items were purchased from the BYU Surplus Sale that happens every month.  A great way to get cheap stuff.

So as you can see I now operate my laptop as more of a desktop with two monitors.  It's nice, I usually have a web browser open on the main screen with music controls, chat windows and other extras open on the secondary side (my laptop screen).

Also the soundbar/speaker that came with the monitor is very nice as far as computer sound goes.  The monitor also functions as a 4 port USB hub, which is nice for plugging in and charging my phone, ipod, kindle, and camera.  It's for sure worth a lot more that $60.

So with that in mind... I'll make a new post about my new desktop background.

Now you're just singing like you used to... oh.

So I stumbled upon this article recently, (Ok, 'stumbled upon' makes it sound like I got it from "Stumble Upon" which I didn't, I just follow mashable and you should too) and I though, gosh there sure are a lot of covers!  I wonder how many of them really suck?

I am a huge fan of this song.  I'm thinking of doing a cover of mine own one day (and it will involve amazing instruments I can assure you).  But there are certain elements that shouldn't be changed in order to preserve the greatness of this song.  One of the most important things is the male-female voice exchange.  Including both voices brings the song up to a higher level, one that simply cannot be reached by a single voice or even a male-male combo.  That's probably my biggest peeve, with many of these covers, I'll explain more of them as I go along because now I'm going to rate all 18 of these covers... (please feel free to skip/skim the rest of this post).

Original
Great song, strong vocals from both guy and girl (that's why they're professional musician, right?).  The instrumentation is nice, gives it a haunting feeling which adds a lot to the song.  Video is weird, and unimportant.

Glee Cast Cover
One of the worst covers here, guy-guy is never good, their voices sound so similar  you can barely tell there's two singing.  They do do a good job of keeping the feeling and meaning of the song.. as long as you don't actually watch the video, then you just stare awkwardly as they awkwardly stand next to each other in an oddly lighted high school auditorium... awkward.

Lindsey Pavao from 'The Voice'
So she has a decent voice (although I'm still not sure she deserves to be on the show).  Tempo changes = sucks.  I think she's trying to be a little too stylized and different, and I think she totally butchers it, I agree with Adam Levine on why it's bad (only he puts is way too nice).

Elsie and Philip from 'American Idol'
After hearing 'The Voice' interpretation of this song I was expecting to really hate this one, but going back to the male-female interchange makes up for a lot.  Their voices are a little weird, I think American Idol is more about stage presence and looks than it is about voices though.  They do a good job of keeping the proper feeling and mood of the song.  Also the B&W graphics are suh-weet!

Walk off the Earth
I don't love the way he sings it.  With all the musical tallent they have boxed inside this frame you'd think they could have lowered the key a bit so he wasn't so strained on the vocals.  Other than that I LOVE the instrumentation on this video.  It does a wonderful job of preserving the mood especially if you watch the video, all black clothing makes her blond hair stand out and helps the mood (and her voice is great).  In the chorus you can feel the angst, which is important.  His not-so-great voice actually makes it all the more angsty.

PS22 Chorus
These kids totally rock.  Not the best cover, but they're kids and the main kid has an amazing voice for a 5th grader.  You loose some of the mood with the kids, so it's not so great as being true to the original, but it's still surprisingly good.  You should check out more of their videos.

Peter Hollens ft. Evynne
Crazy cool video here.  I don't love the "Ooo Ooo" background music, almost a little too ghostly.  Oh and it just drives me crazy how he looks like a creepy alien when he's arranging his face!  His all a capella style is unique to this list and I like it.  He gets the haunted mood too much, and just barely misses the angst level (his face looks mad, but his voice is so smooth it doesn't seem like he's upset at all).  Twisty face girl's voice is great, and the twisty face is a great effect, but he could have used her voice more than he did.

- take breath, stretch your legs and get set for 7-12 -

Army of 3
Who doesn't love Ingrid Michaleson?!  Watching this video helped me to learn the notes to play for when I do my own cover... someday.  Her soulful singing fits pretty well into the mood, and the bass/snare combo does great too.  I like that she says "nothing" and not "nothin'," nice style.  Missing out on a male voice here, but I can get over it.

Boyce Avenue
One guy singing and playing the guitar.  Slower tempo than normal, and lack of interesting instruments (hands as drumsticks do not count) make me yawn, and move on to the next video before realizing that at least he has some passion in his singing.

Sam Tsui
He does one great thing that, while subtle, makes this effort worth a listen.  He sings the girl part like a girl.  Props to him for even trying, and he pulls it off ok.  Also vocal percussion is well done, but the electronic sound of the background vocals isn't so hot.  It's decent.

Pentatonix
Five voices get five stars!  It's great to sing a capella by yourself and all, but singing with other people is special.  Rock out camera man also gets five stars.  The mood is a little off because it's so acoustic, but it's not bad.  All the back up and percussion vocals are great.  Water drop noise FTW!

Tim Whybrow
Why you gotta slow it down so much, why bro, why?  The glass bottle instrumentation is wonderful, but other than that the mood is a little lost on too much guitar, too much sadness, and too many earings.

Jake and Madilyn
They've both got fine voices, but they forgot about this thing called tempo and they turned this exciting and engaging song into a lullaby.  A very nice sounding lullaby, but the angst has all turned to tears.  If you want a peaceful rendition to play before you go to sleep, choose this one.

- ok break time again -  turn off this song, find someone to love, and go outside....
- 13-18 coming up now

Chris and Kirsten
Uh... they're like what 14?  They used the original sound track and added in their electronically adjusted voices... boo.  They do get points for the awkward dance in between singing.  If one of these covers understands teenage angst, it's these two pimple studded stars.  Costuming is also a plus here... but I'm not judging videos, I'm judging covers.

Olivia and Corey
I like the heavy rock sound, it's a good rendition.  Good voices, good instruments (although the continuos off beat chord is a little over balanced) and a good cover.

Freak Morice
Woah! they've got accents to the max(ents)!  Turns out they're from Australia so props for being a fan of/covering your own countrymen.  They probably covered this before most of us americans had even heard it.  Alas they're only 14 and I think they could have put a lot more emotion into this, and I'm disappointed that really only one girl has the lead.

Gavin  Mikhail
Piano rendition is suprisingly well done.  The angst and passion come right through with the pounding of the ivory, but his passion is clearly in the playing and the singing is just a byproduct.  It's about as good as you can get using only one instrument.

Chester and Tiffany
His voice sounds a lot like Chris (the 14 year old in teal,) they must have used the same filter.  Tempo is a little off, but it fits in okay with their country rock beat.  This one gets points for just being different.  Country is not my favorite, but here they adapt it well with out too much twang.

Michael and Max
er... umm... ok, I'm about out of words for the guitar-only cover.  meh.


After those covers there are two parodies.  The first is pretty funny but not amazing, the second is wholly inappropriate and not worth watching.  But what is worth watching is this music video I found independently.  Points on that one for the editing and funny kids.

nothing

I realized that I haven't posted anything for a while (almost a whole month!) and I feel like I don't have anything to post, which today, might be true.  Nothing important has happened to me today, but over the past month there have been a few random happenings that are somewhat noteworthy.

It's funny how we tend to focus so much on the here an now.  Many a person will say, "oh nothing's happening.." when really only two days ago they won the lottery.  After something is over I tend to forget about it.... if only excitement happened in retrospect.

So in lieu of some more interesting thoughts that swim in my mind, I will simply provide you with some pictures from some random happenings through the last months...

My car was paintballed!  Luckily our neighbor saw it, told us, and we wiped the paint of while it was still wet.  There might be a little bit of pink still in the grill though.

I quit working at Taco Time and subsequently stopped drinking 32 oz of soda everyday.  I'm always looking out for my health.

I worked for a handful of weeks at an industrial ceramics facility.  I worked with a mason who built/repaired kilns.  This is a picture of an arch (over the kiln door) that I made... woot.

 At one point in the month we took some BYU graduate family pictures... These may or may not be a surprise for my mother for an upcoming holiday.  I took this one and edit it a little for fun... (click on it for big size)

To come in a future post: my new desk, my new tv, and some thoughts on other things :P

Athleticism

Recently I my mind has been stirred up to thinking about the definition of a sport.  If you check the worlds most useful and accessible encyclopedia it says that "Sport is all forms of competitive physical activity which, through casual or organized participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants."  The dictionary defines it as, "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature"

That blond kid is so gonna kick that ball...

Both of these definitions (and most thoughts of 'sports') call to mind physical activity, sweaty men, and exercise (oh yeah, and a mass of kids mindlessly following a ball around a field).  Yet there are many sports that do not fit this 'athletic' definition, the General Association of International Sport Federations (GAISF) recognizes five different 'mind-sports' such as chess, go, bridge, and even checkers.  Of course even those 'athletic' sports do not all require the same amount of strength, stamina, dexterity, or even fitness.  A 'futballer' is clearly in better shape than a 'caster' (fisherman), and sumo wrestler could hardly hope to perform like a gymnast (and viceversa).

They're similar... but yet different.

Over the course of history what society considers 'sport' has taken various forms.  From the purely track and field events of the first olympics to this years first ever European Winter X-Games, the events that we crowd around a TV to watch are changing as the technology around them.  Lately I have been glued to my computer screen as I watch live streams of some of my favorite video games being played in tournaments around the world.  E-gaming seems to be the newest wave in development of sports.  If you think back 30 years, people then didn't really consider skateboarding to be a 'professional sport' but it sure is now.


I think many people are reluctant to call gamers 'athletes,' because they're not really athletic, and that's fair, but not being an athlete doesn't mean what you do isn't a sport.  Consider things like shooting,  racing (NASCAR) or, equestrian events, those are sports, but it's hard to call those who do them athletes.  Some of you may argue saying that jockeys are athletes, and certainly some people believe that race car drivers are athletes.  I assure you, it may take great skill, but not athletic conditioning.

Although, it can't take that much skill to hit a target with fancy
targeting scanners attached to your head and gun.

People seem to equate being athletic with things outdoors, even things like jet ski racing seem more athletic due to it's outdoor nature, but really what more athletic conditioning does a jet ski racer need over a NASCAR driver?  If a man were to run several miles every day on his indoor treadmill, we might think him to be less athletic than the man who walks for just one mile outside.  Think about it.

A gamer is just as much an athlete as many of these aforementioned sport playing professionals.  He may sit down during his event, (so do many jockeys), yet the skill, dexterity, concentration, and comprehension, are (I think) much higher than most athletic events.  I believe that e-sports will continue to grow and become more and more socially acceptable.  I believe that I will live to see the day where StarCraft is broadcast on television, and not just through the internet.

This guy is just awesome, and he sure looks athletic, but
does his sport require athleticism to compete?

That's right, he's sitting down.

March Madness

I have a very distinct first memory of March Madness.  I was either nine or ten years old, and in either fourth of fifth grade.  You might think that that isn't very specific for such an important memory, and so I will say that I'm pretty sure I was in fifth grade, 10 years old, and the year was 1998.  My elementary school principal was a graduate and a huge fan of the University of Utah (The U).  The U basketball team had a strong streak in the late 90's and was in the NCAA tournament for the fourth time in a row and our principal had been giving us updates and encouraging us to root for them.  They made it to the championship game where they played against the University of Kentucky.  I was a much bigger fan of UK than I was of the U, so I wore my Kentucky apparel to school the day after the championship game rubbing it into my principal that UK had beaten the U.

You might wonder why I am such a fan of the University of Kentucky, well I am happy to tell you.

This is where I was born,

This is how to get from there (where I was born) to Rupp Arena, where the University of Kentucky basketball team plays.

Congrats to the Wildcats for their 8th national championship!!

For those interested in random basketball trivia please keep reading, otherwise you may now close this window and resume your internet-ing.  I have a hard time remembering if my specific memory was in '98 or '97 because in both of those years Utah lost to Kentucky in the final and Elite 8 (respectively).  Furthermore, Utah lost to Kentucky in '96 in the Sweet 16, and in the second round in '93.  The first time that Utah ever made it into a post season tournament, (NIT 1941) they lost to Kentucky in the first round, and most recently Utah lost to Kentucky in 2005 in the Sweet 16.  Utah also lost to Texas Western in 1966 who went on to beat Kentucky in the final. (One of only three times Kentucky has made it to the final and not won... totally random, I know.)