A lot of you kids are young, so maybe you don’t remember Ibrahim Jaaber, but he went to Penn and he played basketball and he was really, really good. As good as we are at dating. He won Ivy League Player of the Year in 2007 and went on to play ball in Europe. Now he’s on the Lakers summer league team and has a good shot of suiting up in gold and purple come fall.
Yeah, we know, the Lakers! Exciting, right? They won the NBA Finals the last two years, but could end up losing some of their point guards this off season. Jordan “My Ears Are Enormous” Farmar and Derek “I Will Teach You Life Lessons” Fisher could be leaving for the Nets and Heat respectively, opening up an Ibrahim Jaaber sized hole in the team. (We like to imagine an actual hole in the shape of his body in a wall somewhere in the Lakers practice facility that he can jump through on the first day of practice.) Read the rest of this entry »
Wait, we have guys who can dunk?
Sure, we’re all worried that tonight’s basketball game against Princeton (7 p.m. at the Palestra) won’t end in time for Lost (9 p.m. on our couches and beds). But oddly enough, the Quakers themselves are worried most about winning because this is a big game. See, they won Friday against Cornell, who was ranked in the top 25. To put that in context, last year’s national champions, the UNC Tar Heels, were not ranked at all. Crazy!
But then they lost to Columbia. This disappointment was comparable to when Jack found out he was going to leave the island only to have Locke blow up the submarine (Sorry, we are really excited for Lost!). If they lose again tonight, they’re in real bad shape. Read the rest of this entry »
As we told you earlier, mens basketball coach Glen Miller was fired today after the Quakers opened the season with an 0-7 record. Check out the full DP report for all the details. Here are some quotes in the article from Athletic Director Steve Bilsky:
“It was really that lack of what Penn represents — in addition to the wins and losses — that disappointed me and led me to the conclusion to do this,” Bilsky said. “It’s just the general sense that I think of us as a community-building activity, that students can come to the Palestra and watch their team and be proud of it,” Bilsky said.
“I’m not going to really talk about what Glen did and didn’t do,” he said. “I’m just gonna say that’s an important quality for this person to have, to generate enthusiasm and hope and faith and goodwill and do all of those things.”
We get where he’s coming from. When we went to the Palestra earlier this year to film a UTBTV segment on The Line, we didn’t get enough footage to produce anything worthwhile, in part because not many people showed up. Maybe that was the lack of community Bilsky was talking about. We interviewed Coach Miller about what he likes on his Qdoba burrito, his hopes for the new season and why he crouches on the sideline. It was a side of Miller we hadn’t seen before – the enthusiasm-generating side Bilsky would like to have seen more of.
Obviously, we don’t like to see people lose their jobs, but hopefully interim coach Jerome Allen or whoever takes over head coaching duties next season can learn from Miller’s mistakes. Just like Bilsky, we’d be happy to see more excitement on campus for basketball and a more outgoing coach could help make that happen.
If nothing else, it’s easier to make fun of a coach who’s more of a presence around campus. See how much fun we have with Amy? Anyway, we wish Coach Miller good luck in the future and hope he’s back on the bench for someone else next fall.
We realize that not every team can be a champion. It is a monumental achievement to even win one game against the talented opponents the Quakers face at the Palestra each night, much less rack up enough wins to bring home the championship belt or trophy or free pizza party or whatever they get.
That is what our basketball players must be telling each other after practice each day because it is really not that monumental to win a game – we do it plenty of times each year – but it has not happened yet this season.
Our friends at the DP say that if our basketball team does not win tonight or Saturday, it’ll be the first time since 2000 they’ve ended the fall semester without a win. Yikes! The New Jersey Nets just broke a record by opening the season with 18 losses and everyone made fun of them. We can’t have the Jocks AND the Nerds on campus getting picked on. Sticks and stones may break their bones but words will not help them win games here! Read the rest of this entry »
This thing is tearing Wharton apart!
For whatever reason, listservs get people angry like few other things. First the Slavic department went nuts and now Wharton is getting in on the anger. Says our tipster:
The entire Wharton 2009 and 2010 listservs have been added to the “WAB [Wharton Dean's Undergraduate Advisory Board] applicants” listserv and spammed. We’re up to over 100 “please remove me” emails done reply all style in about 15 minutes. Because clearly after the first couple it wasn’t clear that it was a glitch.
Seems that glitch resulted in a nonsense spam message being sent to the whole listserv with “a horizontal pyramid of flames” mentioned in the subject line. That’s where this story kind of falls apart for us, though, because who would ever want to leave a listserv over such a wild, spooky topic?
Immediately, “remove me” emails made up the bulk of the email thread, but eventually a backlash developed – people wanted to stay on the listserv. Then people began using the thread as a way to reconnect with old friends. A number of people used it to make jokes and a few of them were even funny. What started as a strange, pyramid fueled anger release ended as something that was almost beautiful. Well done, some people in Wharton.
Were you hit with this? Are you outraged? Do you have a great story from your hour of constant emails? Let us know in the comments!
Check after the jump for a look at just how wild and wacky this was. Read the rest of this entry »
Our best friend Eric Furda, Dean of Admissions, will be part of a panel discussion on college admissions tonight at 7 at Wesleyan University. “But UTB,” you say, “how am I supposed to get up there in less than an hour. You are the worst!” Shut up, that is not true. You see, it’s being broadcast live right here over the internet, so you CAN watch it.
Penn Current says:
Furda will join seven other university admissions officials for “Inside the Admissions Office,” an event sponsored by the Wall Street Journal on Campus and Unigo.
“Inside the Admissions Office” is billed as a discussion Q&A to “demystify the college admissions process,” and the sponsors report that many questions are already in the queue from high school students seeking help in their quest to find the right campus fit.
Party in the USA! The A is for Admissions!
Here at UTB Headquarters, we spend a lot of time figuring out what we should do with our astronomical blogging salaries. So while we were perusing various online auctions for fine silks and exotic palaces (jk, we were reading UniWatch), we found this listing for an 1898 program from our annual football game with Harvard. It ends on the 9th so we should all start looking for spare change under the couch!
That thing just looks so great. A cloth cover? Even better with that art on the front. “Various team photos throughout”? You know how much we love old Penn photos. This is the coolest bit of Penn memorabilia we’ve come across since those foam hats we missed out on.
All of us bloggers are pitching in to buy a cruise ship that also has wheels so we can easily move from water to land when we want snacks and stuff, but can one of you guys buy this and then give it to us this holiday season? It doesn’t even need to be one of you – a bunch of you guys can pitch in and then give us a group gift. Whatever works – we realize beggars can’t be choosers.
Seems like Philadelphia police have had it up to HERE with you kids and your fancy no-training-wheels-bicycles. DP Photographer Pete Lodato sent us this warning:
Here’s a bit of a heads up for bikers at both Penn and throughout Philly: get ready for a crackdown. While pedaling up 40th Street, I was lucky enough to be warned by a Penn police officer of the impending shake-up. Apparently, there are a lot of really awful bikers who don’t like to follow the rules of the road, and as a result, Philly police are going to start issuing citations to bikers who run red lights and use sidewalks instead of the street. In addition, the city council is also debating on a bike-registration system to help track problematic bikers and repeat offenders.
Follow the rules of the road, guys. Or: protest! Our friends at the local Fox affiliate reported yesterday on a Philadelphia Bike Messenger Association protest of the crackdown. The couriers say it shows a “rise of an anti-cycling climate in our city.” How do you guys feel about this? Has anyone been pulled over? Hit us up in the comments.
A tipster sent us this photo of a random sign outside Houston. A random sign outside Houston is totally how they would cancel Fling, so we rushed to our computers and went to wtfpenn.net to find…a list of all the great things our student government has done for us? This one’s going viral, you guys!
“Think Penn Student Government Does Nothing For You?” it asks. “Not really,” we reply to our computer screens, “they provide services like Fling and Hey Day. Of course they do things.” Then the website makes us look SO DUMB by telling us how the different branches of student government provide services for us like Fling and Hey Day.
At the end it says we should go to the State of the School tomorrow night at 6 p.m. in College Hall. If we were to guess what the State of the School is from this website, it is a campus full of unappreciative dorks who don’t recognize all the great, wonderful, fun things its awesome student government does for it. Cannot WAIT.
Here’s something fun, though: if you accidentally go to wtfpenn.com, you get redirected to sony.com. Oh cool, look at all the hip, versatile electronics that cater to our on-the-go lifestyle!
Who likes free movies? When was the last time you went to a free movie? For us it was basically a free movie FESTIVAL over Thanksgiving break in our family room at home. Maybe you haven’t heard of DVDs but they’re kind of changing how we watch movies. Free movies all the time! (Except for the price of the DVDs! A cost that is often expensive! Hey, whatever!)
Wait, you already know about DVDs? And you’re saying that when you go to a free movie you want to leave your house and you want popcorn and you want to see Michael Cera in person? Then maybe this free movie is more up your alley. SPEC Film is hosting a free screening of Youth In Revolt at The Bridge tomorrow night at 7:30!
Plus, there’s a Q&A session afterwards with Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday and the C.D. Payne, the author of the book that is now the major motion picture in question. Which one of you guys is going to ask Mr. Cera the obligatory Arrested Development Movie question? Work that out amongst yourselves because one of you really should ask him.
You can pick up your tickets in the Office of Student Life or click here to print them out. Seating is first come, first served. As long as you show up early, you’ll probably have a better chance of getting a seat at The Bridge than in our family room. (Don’t even THINK about getting a spot on the couch if the whole family’s watching.)
