Shake It Up (said in your best Scott Ferrall voice)

Six more Top 25 teams went down two weeks ago, including two of the top 5. The Number one spot has changed 6 straight weeks making it the second-longest streak since the first rankings started in 1949. Top 25 teams lost to unranked teams 36 times from January 17^th to February 6^th, the most in at least 17 years of men’s college basketball.

With the Madness already in full affect on Saturday as college basketball was still shocked that Tennessee crushed Kentucky by 30 points. Yes the Wildcats were without Nerlens Noel, but going down by 30 points to a 13-10 (6-6 SEC) UT team is called being exposed. It was a great win for the VOLS!

Later Saturday night Duke lost to Maryland by 2 points in a much needed win for MD and this could be the last time the Blue Devils play in the Comcast Center as the Terrapins move to the Big 10 in 2014.

It was a fun game, but it’s wasn’t a pretty game. The Dukies played 4 games in 10 days with two on the road and taking on UNC at home was clearly exhausting. You could tell it wasn’t the same Duke team and they were playing a sloppy and scrappy Maryland team at home. Duke’s lack of energy kept it a close game, but Mason Plumlee was held to four points and fouling out (he scored 18 points against UNC). With three seconds left in the game and an 81-81 score, Duke’s Quinn Cook fouls Maryland’s Seth Allen and he made both foul shots for the win. Call me crazy, but that was not a foul on Cook. The game should have gone to OT.

But where Maryland really won the game was in the student section! Now this was my fourth Duke-MD game in the Comcast Center and I can assure you that UMD students still fear the classroom for their lack of creativity for “chants”. Each year I think they are going to come up with something, anything- besides “sucks” and the F bomb. But give them some music and they put on a good show. The new YouTube flash mob craze is the “Harlem Shake” and the students did not disappoint.

What is the Harlem Shake?

For the uninitiated, it consists of users uploading videos to YouTube that last about thirty seconds in length and feature the opening of electronic music producer Baauer’s song “Harlem Shake.” The videos begin with the song’s sample of a man giving a shrieking siren call of “Con los terroristas!”—Columbian Spanish for “with the terrorists”—followed by one person, usually in a ridiculous mask or helmet, dancing to the song alone as the beat builds. He or she is surrounded by others who are stationary, blissfully unaware of the dancer. When the directive, Then do the Harlem shake is uttered about 15 seconds in, the bass drops and the video metastasizes into pure chaos—the entire coterie engaging in paroxysms of dance for the next 15 seconds in outrageous outfits, and wielding bizarre props. –The Daily Beast

(See links below)

Duke-Maryland game

Maryland students were not the only ones making YouTube videos of the Harlem Shake.

Former UT Vol and current Milwaukee Bucks player, Tobias Harris made an appearance at the UT vs. Kentucky game:

Other good ones ODU Baseball team and UGA Men’s Swim & Dive team

Beating Duke may have been a game changer for the Terrapins shot at getting asked to the dance in March, but their dance moves can only take them to You Tube. Then again, with this year of madness already taking over in February is proving that no one really knows how the brackets will play out so until March- Shake it up!

PS. I still do not understand why UMD students “riot” when they beat Duke. One future scholar of America was quoted for justifying why setting a trashcan on fire was better than setting a couch on fire. “It gives us something to burn and we have a bad reputation of burning couches; this way we can burn something and do it basically to celebrate”.