Todd Stowell Online

Although I never went to UVM, you can't not be stoked about this. Story from sportsillustrated.com...

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) -- Taylor Coppenrath scored 37 points Saturday to lead Vermont to a 80-57 victory over Northeastern to win the American East Championship and advance to the NCAA tournament.

Vermont used a team approach with 24 assists to Northeastern's 7 and contained Northeastern star Jose Juan Berea to 14 points before he left the game early in the second half with a twisted ankle.

The win marks the third year in a row that Vermont will advance to the NCAA's.

Berea led Northeastern with 14 points and Adrian Martinez followed with 11.

The win was the last for Vermont coach Tom Brennan who is retiring after 19 seasons in Burlington.

Vermont led at the half 48-34.

Northeastern scored the first basket of the second half to reach within 12 but that was as close as the game got.

Any chances Northeastern had to make a comeback were dashed at the 14 minute mark of the second half when Berea twisted his ankle after coming down on a Vermont player's foot. Berea pounded the floor in frustration.

Vermont shot 54.7 percent from the floor and 41.2 percent from the 3-point line. Northeastern shot 36.2 percent from the floor and 36.0 percent from the 3-point line.

Northeastern shot a more down-to-earth 43.3 percent in the first half but still managed to shoot 50 percent from 3-point range.

Vermont won the regular season America East title and was ranked first going into the conference tournament. Northeastern was the tourney's second seed.

Vermont advanced to the tournament finals with victories last weekend over the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Binghamton. Northeastern defeated Stonybrook and Maine.

Northeastern has been the American East champion a record seven times, most recently in 1991.

There were six nations represented on the floor in the beginning of the game: the United States, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Czech Republic, Canada and Cameroon.

Labels: Catamount, University, UVM, vermont

FROM CNN.COM -- PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A gigantic lobster that may have survived two world wars and Prohibition before being plucked from the ocean will live on -- but only as a shell of its former self.

The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium plans to keep the shell of the 22-pound lobster, named Bubba, and use its remains to educate school children, said Rachel Capp, a zoo spokeswoman.

Some of Bubba's meat will be sent to labs for testing as officials try to determine why Bubba died, Capp said Thursday.

Bubba spent a week at Wholey's fish market after he was pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Massachusetts. He died Wednesday, after he was moved from the fish market to a quarantine area at the zoo's aquarium. He was being checked to see if he was healthy enough to make a trip to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

Randy Goodlett, a marine biologist and former curator and director of the zoo's Aqua Zoo, said the lobster likely died because something was slightly off in the salt water mixture it was living in. Capp guessed it might have been the stress of being moved so many times.

Based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size -- about five to seven years to grow to a pound -- some estimated Bubba was about 100 years old. Marine biologists said 30 to 50 years was more likely.

Labels: bubba, lobster

Life is too short.. expecially when there is trauma, loss, and stress....

FROM CNN.COM -- PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- He dodged lobster pots for decades, endured a trip from the coast of Massachusetts to Pittsburgh and survived about a week in a fish market. But a trip to the zoo proved to be too much for a 22-pound lobster named Bubba.

The leviathan of a lobster died Wednesday afternoon at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium about a day after he was moved from Wholey's Market, said zoo spokeswoman Rachel Capp and Bob Wholey, owner of the fish market.

"They're very finicky. It could have been a change in the water. You have no idea," said Wholey.

Bubba died in a quarantine area of the zoo's aquarium, where he was being checked out to see if he was healthy enough to make a trip to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, Capp said.

Bubba will be examined to try to figure out why he died, although Capp and Wholey guessed it may have been the stress of being moved.

Based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size -- about five to seven years to grow to a pound -- some estimated Bubba was about 100 years old. But marine biologists said 30 to 50 years was more likely.

Other large lobsters didn't fare well after they were caught, too.

In 1985, a 25-pound lobster that the New England Aquarium planned to give to a Tokyo museum died when the water temperature rose and the salt dropped in its aquarium. In 1990, a 17-1/2-pound lobster named Mimi died just days after being flown to a restaurant in Detroit. Last year, a 14-pound lobster named Hercules that was rescued by a Washington state middle school class died before it could be released off the coast of Maine.

Labels: bubba, lobster, maine, pennsylvania

Finally.. a story that brings the world together. That story.. you guessed it.. old seafood...

FROM CNN.COM - PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- He could have survived two world wars and Prohibition. He also could have been dinner.

He's Bubba, a 22-pound leviathan of a lobster pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Massachusetts, and shipped to a Pittsburgh fish market.

On Tuesday, Owner Bob Wholey Wholey gave the lobster to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, which will send him to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

"It is overwhelming," Wholey said. "If you see it, you will never forget it. Customers are just in awe."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent Wholey a letter asking him to work with the group to release Bubba back in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine.

Another group calling itself People For Eating Tasty Animals reportedly offered Wholey a hefty price for the lobster. At Tuesday's price of $14.98 a pound, Bubba would retail for about $350.

Based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size -- about five to seven years to grow to a pound -- some estimate Bubba is 100 years old.

But Bob Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, is skeptical and estimates that Bubba is likely 50 years old. Warm water and plenty of food may have more to do with a lobster's size than how long it's been alive, he said.

Note: It is really sad that with all of the problems in the world, we are talking about seafood.

Labels: animal, buddy, lobster, maine, pitsburgh