Regional Final Game Notes/Opportunity to Knock Peyton Manning–I think he will survive it

Today and tomorrow (“Robin Bubbles” b/day and 39 years, “exactly,” since no tape ‘para’ Rabbi Harry Goder at a Northeast Jewish Center ceremony, honoring Mr. Goder–he was “Mr.” for trigonometry and Rabbi in Hebrew school), four regional final round games will be played, determining the “semis” qualifiers.

In the East on Sunday, overall top seed Duke will face Connecticut followed by the South “reg” final game, matching region top seed Michigan and Tennessee (read ahead as I get another opportunity to (pun intended/unfortunately also too much venom?), to “knock,” the so lucky, underachieving Peyton Manning).

See, among many Manning “fails” in big games (it does stop him from being shoved down our collective throats in ad after ad) was when Tennessee and Manning failed to help Michigan in a ’97 season bowl game (Manning also never beat Florida in 4 tries, another gauge to go with his many big NFL game failures), thus with Scott Frost of Nebraska clamoring for it, the last year of no official college pig champion was another share, between Michigan and Nebraska.

Last night Michigan, which won an undisputed football crown after “semi-ing” Alabama in Saban(o’) s last in 2023, “reg” semi’d them last night, before Tennessee, a recent trivia ? answer, as the lone listed team, sans an NCAA hoops crown (they do have football such, most notably one in ’98, the first so called official, the year after Manning left. I need not be Perry Mason to win my “case” vs the extremely talented, Kershaw type, Manning, each with titles but how much does that offset their ‘offs negatives–I say very little) denied a “Johnny Orr” game, beating Iowa State, which made its only national “semi” appearance in ’44 when there were (add those digits= 8 in the whole tournament.

Today’s tilts will match Illinois (-7) vs fellow Big Ten team Iowa (The Big Ten, unofficially but likely, is (16-4) in this tournament vs other conference teams) followed by Arizona (-6 or so) vs another “Big Ten-er,” Purdue.

Johnny Orr, who coached both Michigan and Iowa State teams in the NCAA Tournament, is pictured above.

Fifty years ago, Indiana completed an undefeated season winning vs Orr coached Michigan in an all Big Ten final game, whose score was cited by Elliott Gould, that same night on the Academy Awards–Gould, memorably as a presenter with Isabelle Adjani, waited until her “And The Winner is” and then imparted quickly, “Indiana 86-68).”

Click below to view it. Both Mr. Gould and his once spouse, Barbra Streisand, who recently paid tribute to Robert Redford at the apples/oranges Oscars, have produced excellent moments at those awards.