Not quite as mad

It’s pretty sad not getting into the CBI and CIT if you’re a Big West team with a plus-.500 record.

… I had been looking forward to going to the Big West Conference final to see Long Beach State play in it since the end of the 2008-09 college basketball season. I just knew they would get there.

Then the new Big West Conference season happened.

LBSU didn’t get off to a good start to conference. They would lose their first two games and struggled to get to a .500 league record and a No. 3 seed in the tournament.

Since they struggled, I did not ask for the conference finals day off. Then I saw the 49ers advance to the finals.

For a while I wondered if I was going to miss the second Big West title in three years in person.

So from work, I watched the finals. Sure enough, I made the right decision. LBSU lost and did not get the NCAA automatic bid.

I did, however, hold out hope they would get some sort of post season bid.

Well they couldn’t get one of those either. So it looks like I’ll ask for next year’s final off.

… Speaking about the tournament, the NCAA is considering adding 31 more teams to the tournament. Personally, I think it is a bad idea, however, there has to be some sort of expansion.

My solution is simple, three more play-in games so three more at-large teams can get in. Most of the No. 15 and No. 16 seeds are first round fodder; it would be better if they cannibalized each other rather than take up a bracket spot for truly deserving teams.

… Recently two celebrities passed away: Peter Graves and Merlin Olsen.

People will remember Peter Graves as the lead actor from the TV show “Mission Impossible” the pilot in the movie “Airplane!” and narrator from A&E’s show “Biography.”

Merlin Olsen will be remembered as a NFL Hall of Famer, actor on the show “Little House on the Prairie” and NFL color commentator on NBC.

For me, it wasn’t any of those reasons I thought of first. The first thing I remembered was movies they acted in that were featured on the TV show “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

Olsen was in the movie “Mitchell” that featured Joe Don Baker as a shabby police investigator. Graves was in “Parts: The Clonus Horror” and stared as a presidential candidate who hid the secret about a clone farm.

Both movies were trashed by the main characters from the show. I don’t know if it is a good thing the first thing I thought of when I heard their passing, but it shows the lasting impression of MST3K.