<p>"NEW HAVEN, Conn. Facing its first Division I opponent in 18 years, MIT was unable to keep pace with Yales size and depth as the Bulldogs outscored the Engineers by 10 in each half en route to an 86-63 victory at John J. Lee Amphitheater on Saturday.</p>
<p>Senior Jimmy Bartolotta wowed the largest crowd the Engineers have seen this season with several spectacular plays, but despite his terrific performance and game-high 32 points, MIT (7-4) had few answers for Yales (3-9) inside attack. The Bulldogs finished with a decisive advantage in points in the paint (48-28), second chance points (18-2), and points off the bench (36-2). Yale also took advantage of MITs 22 miscues, outscoring the Engineers 28-11 off turnovers."</p>
<p>I don’t know, I think it is pretty surprising that MIT has a basketball team. It’s not terribly uncommon for colleges to have no athletics at all.</p>
<p>If suddenly Ohio State started beating us in math competitions or something, we’d be like “Ohio State has a math team?”</p>
<p>(Ohio State just happens to be a school I associate strongly with athletics, probably only because a good friend of mine is a fan. Nothing against anyone.)</p>
MIT has 30+ varsity sports among the most of any college in the country … actually similar to many DIII schools that have lots of varsity sports (many DI schools have many less … I believe LSU has something like 15 varsity sports, for example). MIT also has an incredible participation rate in intramural sports … many years among the highest participation rates in the country. Clearly lots of MIT students participate in sports of one form or another.</p>
<p>One last thought referencing the title of the thread … while the IVYies might not rank very high in the DI world of bball the difference between DI and DIII is pretty harsh … and virtually any DIII team would be hard pressed to beat any of the IVY league teams … the skill level may as be as high, or even better in DIII, but in most cases the size/speed/quickness difference is pretty substantial.</p>
<p>Im not an athletics guy, at least not team stuff, but its pretty cool to see some of the stereotypes getting chipped away. Now if MIT could just invent a basketball that would automatically calculate the necessary angle of launch and average power needed to launch the ball for a perfect swish, and a means to communicate that to the player, we will start to really cream.! :D</p>
<p>I disagree – I wouldn’t be surprised at all in the math team example.</p>
<p>And anyway, it’s not the actual knowledge or lack of knowledge that bugs me. I mean, I’m sure most people haven’t thought much about whether a certain school has or doesn’t have anything in particular. It’s the presumed hilarity and oddity of it, as if you couldn’t be smart and interested in playing basketball (or, in my case, interested in wearing a short skirt and throwing people up in the air). It’s fine if people want to be mocking like that, but I don’t want to be involved in the conversation.</p>
<p>Two bus loads of MIT students went to the game in Rhode Island and took over the atmosphere in the arena. (Mollie - sure hope the cheerleaders are going to the game tonight!)</p>
<p>Hmm, I guess I see your point. That kind of thing annoys me, I think we just interpreted the comment differently.</p>
<p>What annoys me is this line from the video:</p>
<p>“These screaming, cheering, face-painted geniuses from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a reason to be pumped.”</p>
<p>Gah. I HATE being called a genius. I know that sounds weird, but just think of someone meeting you and within 30 seconds finding out that you go to MIT and going, “oh, so you’re a genius.” It’s just weird, and it bugs me.</p>
<p>It’s definitely an annoying thing when terms are so carelessly used that they carry no meaning.</p>
<p>Like I’ve mentioned before, I know at
least one star professor of math at my school who calls himself “just a normal guy” – it amuses me to no end. I mean, calling Noam Elkies or Terence Tao a genius isn’t a bad thing I guess…but people draw the line very, very early. Perhaps to other fields medalists, Tao isn’t a genius, but at the point where you can count the number of people at that level on a few hands, I think we can use the term “genius” without it losing meaning.</p>
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<p>I guess I take these things very lightly, and while I certainly wouldn’t scoff at someone doing 2+ things that aren’t commonly associated with one another, I am kind of amused that people are so amused. People have been excessively amused when I say I used to play basketball at a younger age, for instance. I don’t think it’s surprising though. </p>
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<p>I have to agree that this comment makes me shudder. The attempt to be excessively cute…in the absolute least clever of ways.</p>
<p>Surely they could aim higher than that. Ivy League basketball is pretty lame. The Ivy League champion gets an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament every year, but they don’t do a blessed thing with it. They promptly lose when facing a real basketball team. It’s been at least a decade since the last time the Ivy League champion advanced past the first round of the tournament.</p>
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<p>Not surprising at all. If a school has any athletics at all it almost always includes basketball. Football requires a big field, a lot of players, and a ton of equipment. Almost every school has a gym. The only thing you need beyond a gym is 12 guys, some uniforms, and a basketball.</p>
<p>Eh, my point still stands. Given the fact that plenty of colleges don’t have any sports teams, if you had to guess what one of those sports-less colleges might be, you’d probably pick MIT if you knew nothing about it.</p>
<p>And it would even make SENSE, not because smart people can’t play sports but you might imagine that MIT would want to focus more of its resources on labs, etc.</p>
<p>Trying to be funny based off of narrow stereotypes isn’t cool (smart kids don’t play sports) is lame, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being surprised to find out that MIT has a basketball team.</p>
<p>I think that was mainly the point – it’s kind of lame, and makes some of us (myself included) shiver. </p>
<p>I do think, however, that I’d not be surprised if ANY school had a basketball team. Sure, in the case of some individuals, it may be surprising. Like I said, if someone laughed out loud if I claimed I could play basketball, I’d probably be somewhat amused myself :)</p>
<p>Looks like they are doing even better this year than last, even after losing star Jimmy Bartolotta to graduation. They got a transfer from Brown, who leads them in scoring and rebounding. Lots of info on the blog.</p>
<p>Yeah, this is my thought too. I’m not surprised or bothered that people are surprised, but I’m annoyed at the un-witty attempts to be clever that are based around the presumption that for geeks to play sports is weird.</p>
<p>It’s not just sports, either - I’ve seen/heard similar stupid comments about MIT having fraternities and sororities, or MIT having parties, or MIT having people who are interested in and/or good at the arts (other than classical music) or MIT having humanities majors. And in all cases, it’s not the surprise that is stupid, it’s the particular way of joking about it.</p>