It’s time for Troy and Drake and all the saints

As the college basketball tournament begins, we can meet varied places.
There’s Kansas, which is a state, and Bryant, which is a Gumbel. There’s Liberty, which is a concept, and Auburn, which is a color. There’s Wofford (shown here) and Lipscomb and McNeese and more.
That’s the egalitarian notion of the NCAA tourney. It has spots for Texas, with 53,000 students, and Wofford, with 1,600. It has Yale, which has provided five American presidents, and others which haven’t even had an Undersecretary of Transportation.
The interesting names start during the two “play-in” days, on TruTV.
At 6:40 p.m. ET Tuesday, there’s St. Francis of Pennsylvania (not to be confused with Saint Francis of Assisi). At 6:40 p.m. Wednesday, there’s American University.
(We thought they were all American universities, but that might be wrong. This year, there’s a team from Troy.)
More contrasts? This year, there’s High Point and Grand Canyon.
There are entire states – Oklahoma, Missouri, Montana and such – and mere cities: Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Akron.
(Legend says that Troy was both. It was a powerful city-state until it failed to properly examine an incoming present.)
There’s Lipscomb (which we don’t believe is related to football’s Big Daddy Lipscomb) and various individuals. There’s Robert Morris, plus three saints (Mary, Francis and John) and a rapper (Drake).
There’s also a hint of nobility (Duke), a railroad baron (Vanderbilt) and a really big hole in the ground (Grand Canyon).
Further research tells us that High Point was a named after the highest point of the North Carolina railroad. The city was, of course, once known as the hosiery capital of the world.
Also, Bryant began as a business college, where people studied bookkeeping. It’s grads probably could have helped Wofford, which is in South Carolina and at one point put all of its endowment into Confederate bonds.
Those bonds became worthless, but the school has now rebounded and has a $400 million endowment. Then again, Yale has $41.4 billion. It really doesn’t need to win any basketball games to be happy.