250th episode: 3/13/26

I welcome the math and musings.

I'm Michael Connell, creator of math and musings, and your host.

Stay tuned for 15 minutes of science, politics, news, and opinion.

In other words, math and musings.

Today's day is Friday, March 13th, 2026.

This is season 6 episode number 11 of our show.

We got, oh, I have my son with me here today, Frank, and how are you?

Good.

Good.

I'm glad to hear it.

I'm so excited.

Yeah, Frank, you got the spinny chair.

How did you get the good chair today?

Oh, wait, you always get the good chair.

Three times around, no feet, right?

My son is spinning around on the fancy chair that used to be mine.

Anyway, it's not 50 minutes of the week.

Right, it's just 15 minutes of the week, you get the thing.

So I'm happy to give it up.

I'm looking at the date today.

Got a lot of ones, twos, threes, and sixes.

I've told that story before.

Those numbers relate.

You've got another Friday 13th.

This is two months in a row.

But forget all that.

Sound the alarms.

It is episode number 250 of Matthew Musings.

Today, on the podcast, we are celebrating,

what do you call that, a quarter millennium, 250.

It's the semi-quinsentennial.

That is the word I picked up this year,

celebrating the 250th anniversary of our nation.

Great that we would hit 250 the same year America does.

And also, right at the same time that, well, our podcast,

I only listened to three podcasts.

And you kind of, by association,

also listened to those three podcasts, which is this one,

Doug Hill's podcast, the Sports Fan Project,

and then the 1988 Topps podcast, all three of those series

have recently hit 250 episodes.

But within the last couple of weeks,

I think the 88 Topps podcast did it first.

And I think Doug just beat us to 250,

and we're heading 250 today.

So I'm pretty excited about our 250th episode

and the 250th anniversary of our nation.

We'll talk more about that as it gets closer to 4th of July.

Now you're making me dizzy here.

Yes.

So you're making me.

Am I spinning around?

Oh no, I'm circling around you.

No, I'm stationary.

Actually, I'm hurtling through space

about 66,000 miles per hour.

So are you at the same speed.

So it looks like we're here together.

Anyway, talking some college basketball today, it is March.

Brackets are out this Sunday.

I'm excited.

You got any predictions?

A basketball team is going to win.

A basketball team is going to win.

A college basketball team is going to win.

I'm looking at the top five rankings right now.

I mean, Duke, Arizona, Michigan, UConn, Florida.

I would call those the usual suspects.

Even for all this changed over college athletics,

the last 43 plus years, my lifetime,

and then really like the last year or two

with NIL deals and the transfer portals

and everything that goes into that.

I mean, you got the same teams winning every year.

I mean, the only thing that's changed

is the age of the coaches.

I've noticed that while the players have always

staged the same age, but to me, the coaches somehow

keep getting younger.

I mean, the coach of Florida, who won last year,

they're coaches younger than I am,

which is just embarrassing.

The players have been younger than I am

for a long time.

They're much closer to your age than to mine.

Not much.

Well, yeah, I mean, some of the players are like 18.

You're 12.

I am 12.

That's right.

There are no.

Yeah.

It's right.

It's not just because of this.

As we confirmed last week, you are a dozen years old.

So look, yeah, usual suspects up at the top.

All the teams that we follow, Virginia's

had a pretty good year this year,

but I'm faltering a little bit lately,

although that could change by the time this year's.

St. John's, I was like the file.

I like Rick Patino, plus New York City team.

Again, faltering a little bit later.

Big story this year, undefeated as of this recording.

Now, that may have changed Miami of Ohio.

Oh, wait, I said it wrong.

I should say Miami of Ohio, and not

the Miami you're thinking of, had rattled off

about 30 wins in a row to start the season.

Now, that may have changed since we record this.

We'll see what kind of respect they

get from the tournament committee.

Winning their conference tournament or no,

I think they're worthy of an at-large bit.

We'll see.

We'll see.

And I'll say, you and I have seen some college basketball

this year.

I don't think we've seen anybody from the top 25 in person.

We've seen some of these games on TV, but none of these teams

in person.

We have, however, been to a few games.

We completed this year when I was calling the DMV6PAC,

which is six college basketball teams around the DMV.

That would be, for those of you not around here,

that's DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and not the DMV

that you know.

And I would say, around these parts,

there are six schools who, not perennial tournament teams,

but, yeah, but pretty much it's a good guess.

These teams are going to be in the tournament.

So you've got the big boys.

You've got Georgetown and Maryland.

I mean, they are teams that have won championships.

You've got sort of the mid-major teams

of American University, George Washington University,

and George Mason University.

Now, I might have been with George Mason

that's stepped up there.

I mean, they've made a final four.

Famously, this is the 20th anniversary of the year.

They made the final four as an 11C.

That was 2006, a little bit before your time.

It's pretty great.

Yeah, it wasn't incredible.

I believe it was only the second time that had happened.

It's happened a couple of times since

with the parody of college athletics.

But what was the lowest seat to win?

Lowest seat to win, I believe, was a Villanova still in 1985.

That was the first year that the tournament expanded

to 64 teams, but that's famously, as far as upsets go.

Villanova in 1985, they were in eight seed.

Sorry, I should have led with that.

They were in eight.

There have been, you know, 9 and 10s

that have made the final four.

11 seeds made the final four.

I don't think the lowest seat to win a championship

was Villanova.

I could easily look it up, but it's more fun

just to think about it for a little bit, right?

And then one final team, we left out Mount St. Mary's.

I had never been to their arena in Emmett'sburg, Maryland,

driven past it many, many times.

It's right there on Route 15, just a short drive up

from Northern Virginia and just hop across the river

and over the river and through the woods,

that would be the Potomac River

and well, more of the mountainous region in the woods

to not arena, K-N-O-T-T.

Built in 1987, we got to see the mountaineers.

Mount St. Mary's, the mount of, let's see,

Jim Thalen fame coached there for a nearly a half century.

They were in division two power for many decades

holding on, holding their own, I think at division one.

They had a few tournaments and including last year,

they played off against American University

and other one of those teams.

You and I also went to the Charles E. Smith Center.

Remember that one?

That was in DC.

That was George Washington University.

Now the Charles E. Smith Center goes back to 1975.

That's what I would call a classic downtown arena.

I really like that one.

We were there just before their 50th anniversary.

They were getting ready for the 50th anniversary

of that venue, the game we saw there.

So I went more on that later.

We also went to the Xfinity Center in College Park, Maryland

at the University of Maryland's campus.

I'd never been to the Xfinity Center before.

It's been around for almost 25 years.

Replace the famous Cole Fieldhouse,

a bigger venue for Maryland to play.

That was just, oh, place opened up just after

they won their championship in 2002.

And then perhaps my favorite of a lot,

just on the setting, we went to Bender Arena

where American University plays.

That place has been open since 1988.

Classic like city college campus.

Not to college campus out in the country.

This is a city college campus, but not terribly urban.

This section of DC, like the, what do we call this?

The Northwest Quadrant, where American University is,

picturesque campus for a semi-urban setting,

I would say, in that Bender Arena of Cool Place

to see a game.

However, it snapped our streak, like,

now, and I should mention also that,

well, George Mason and George Town,

we had seen them many times, one because,

well, George Town's big.

It's fun to go to the games at Capital One Arena,

and George Mason is right down the street from us.

So we're at Eagle Bank Arena all the time.

But we were on a streak of,

and we go to a lot of sporting events,

we had seen eight wins in a row,

across four different sports.

This is three basketball, two football, two hockey,

one baseball, like, we're going back to baseball.

Where are we going, like, a streak of six, like,

a while ago, like, like, July, we had, like,

oh, we had a baseball streak going in July, yeah.

I have forgotten the exact numbers,

but you and I go to a lot of baseball games in the summer.

It was like eight years.

It was also, like, a seven.

We had one, at least, like, I don't know,

six, seven games in a row.

Still doing the thing with the hands, yeah.

So, across four different sports.

And three college basketball games this year,

and part of that DMV six pack.

And then we go to a final home game

of the season for American University.

They're hosting Boston.

Terriers came in, middleing record,

and they and American are about the middle of Patriot League.

And I'm seeing, I'm looking at Boston lineup.

They're center.

You remember this one?

You remember how tall it was?

Seven four?

It's at center, seven feet tall, yeah.

And then he goes out of the game.

The backup is six foot 11.

And when I saw that, I thought, all right,

Eagles don't stand a chance today.

The home team is going to be hurting.

And yeah, Boston jumped out to a huge lead.

They were up about 20 points in the first half.

American cut it to 15 at halftime.

And then started amazingly, started to come back.

I thought American was going to come back and win

and keep our streak going, but no.

Boston ended up winning the game by two.

Ruining our streak, but still a great game.

And I enjoyed seeing the arena.

And the AU campus, which I had never been to before,

even though it's a few miles from my house,

traffic, and it's no metro stops up that way.

You got to drive up there.

And also the same day, we went to the less than a mile away,

I think, from the Krieger Museum.

We'll give a plug to the Krieger Museum.

I'd never been there before, you know,

spend your Saturday, go see some Picasso's and Monet's

and then go see some college basketball.

That's how we roll on Saturday, right?

Take a walk through Rock Creek Park?

Fantastic.

So we got exciting things going on now

in this celebratory episode.

We've got the brackets coming out Sunday.

Final predictions of what's going to be coming here?

No.

I know that to trust the Tournament Selection Committee,

when you're filling out your bracket,

you trust the committee.

And I think on next week's program,

we'll make sure to record it after the brackets have come out,

we'll be able to discuss the teams

and some of the upcoming games,

some of which will already have happened,

but we can tell the story of our watch in these games.

You're now, this will be your 13th tournament.

It will be my 44th.

Spend a while, I go back to even pre 64 teams in these things.

And you know this is going to end

with our having a treat from the drawer.

And I know that for many years,

the Reese's company has been a sponsor

of Kyle's Athletics, specifically the NCAA Tournament.

And in here, of course, if you're not patronizing

the sponsors, it's like you're stealing the product.

So Reese is always big at the NCAA Tournament,

I should say, the Hershey Company,

and specifically its product,

the Hershey Peanut Butter Cups.

I've got a couple of the eggs here.

Love the egg, you're getting more peanut butter

to chocolate ratio.

A higher peanut butter to chocolate ratio here.

There's more peanut butter per chocolate.

What you think the slope is?

I mean, a peanut butter to chocolate.

I'm just saying, standard Reese's is something like two to one.

This is like at least three or four to one.

You're getting a peanut butter to chocolate.

It's a delicious product.

It's good.

I'm speechless.

I do love this interplay of Easter and Reaster

and the Reese's Cup and a proud sponsor

of Collegiate Athletics and the student athletes

who are going to be participating in this upcoming tournament.

I'm excited.

Frank, we got some things to watch over the next couple of weeks

and talk about on the program.

You've been listening to Matthew Musings.

My name is Michael Connell for more information and contact.

You go to mycoconnelljunior.com.