Tech Goes To Nashville

TTU beat The Southeastern Missouri Redhawks 88-60 last night in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference Championship. Tech finished 3-0 for the season against SEMO, and advances to the next round against Eastern Kentucky in Nashville Friday night. If they win that game, they will face either Austin Peay or Samford in the championship game live on ESPN2 from the GEC.

I dressed up as a blind referee, and by the middle of the first half, one ref was calling so blatantly bad, that I took off the fake sunglasses, walking stick, and mega phone asking if he needed them more than me.

Semo never really had a chance. They took the lead for the first 5 minutes, but we went ahead 7-6 and never looked back. The closest SEMO came after that was tying the game at 11 and 14. The second half was even worse for the Redhawks, where they scored a mere 36 points compared to Tech's 50.

Best part of the game: Crowd Chants
The score was 38-24 by halftime, and we let them know. Every time they called a time-out we would start chants of "Fun-da-men-tals!" "Back-To-Ba-sics!" and "SE-MO-High-School!" At one point when they had the ball we started chanting "May-be-Next-Year!" Late in the game they fouled one of our players, and the coach was yelling at the players down court. It got really quiet and I belted out "Tell em' coach! They don't know they SUCK!" It got a good laugh from all the people in my section.

Best Chant:
With about 7 minutes to go in the game the score was 71-41, and we fouled #3, Dionte Perry. He stepped up to the free-throw line and made the first shot. I started chanting "Does-n't-Mat-ter!!" The rest of the group started to follow suit, and Perry couldn't help but notice and started laughing. He looked over and laughed. We knew we'd gotten to him.

**Side Note** SEMO Coach Scott Edgar is a great sport about our rowdiness. In the last meeting between Tech and SEMO in Cookeville he made the mistake of getting on a knee to argue with one of the referees. One of the students belted out "Will you marry me ref??!! Please say yes!" The ref was still laughing about it 5 minutes later.