Tigers Appear in ESPN Polls, Have Cool Names

Rarely, if ever, does a Princeton athlete command the attention of the entire nation. Doug Davis '12 now has that distinct honor -- The Shot snagged a well-deserved top spot on ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10. It also appeared online in a SportsNation poll versus some bicycle kick thing by some soccer bloke:Sadly, The Shot ended up losing 48% to 52%. If you look at the map, you can see the state-by-state breakdown; apparently Davis really struck a chord with the Midwest. And as with most presidential elections, I am entirely unsurprised to see which way Massachusetts voted. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a campus-wide one-day moratorium on SportsCenter over at Hahvahd. (An exercise in empathy: imagine if they scored the devastating buzzer-beater and we had to watch it ad nauseum on the Frist TV. I can only hope someone would intervene and switch it to Food Network or something.)Meanwhile, Davis's teammate Ian Hummer '13 has cropped up on a very, very different ESPN poll. An enterprising journalist went through all the rosters in the men's tournament, plucked out the 64 finest names, and made a bracket out of them. The criteria: "fun to say, fun to spell or cool and unusual." Hummer's name certainly conjures up nice automotive imagery, and there's a satisfying simplicity to it, but he's going to need some major support: his section of the draw boasts heavyweights such as Brockeith Pane (Utah State) and Mouphtaou Yarou (Villanova).As you can see, they gave Hummer the 3 seed, and his first round matchup is against one Eso Akunne of Michigan. Vote for him here! Although it might be futile ... I wouldn't be too shocked if God Shammgod came out of nowhere and won the tournament, despite being 34 years old and not currently on a NCAA roster. He has one of the greatest names in the history of man, let alone in college basketball. (You'll notice one of the other regions of the bracket is named after him.) Shammgod played two seasons at Providence College, got drafted and had an unremarkable career in the pros, but really who cares the dude managed to get the word "god" in his name twice. Also, unreasonably good at dribbling.Fortunately, even if our Tigers don't make it too far in obscure polls, they've still got a shot in the actual NCAA tournament. For the first time ever, both our men's and women's teams have made it to the Big Dance. We'll have a more thorough tournament preview up shortly.