CPT Breakout Artist of the Year 2015 - Lindsey Stirling

.

If ever there was a pioneer in the new computer age who is blazing a trail for the future of the music industry it is Lindsey Stirling, whose story will become a legend.  Following is her biography from her website, lindseystirling.com and a series of her videos you really must watch.  Double click the videos for full screen and you will not regret it.

A Savior is Born - Lindsey Stirling

About

Lindsey Stirling is one of the biggest artist development breakthrough stories in recent years. A classically trained violinist from Gilbert, AZ, Lindsey has entered a futurist world of electronic big beats and animation, leaping through the music industry with over 675 million views on YouTube, Billboard chart-topping hits and sold out tours worldwide.

Les Misérables Medley - Lindsey Stirling

Lindsey’s self-titled debut album featured twelve original tracks; including the viral smash “Crystallize,” which has racked up over 97 million YouTube views. The album has sold over 350,000 copies in the US without the backing of a major label, and has gone platinum in Germany and gold in Poland and Switzerland. The album reached number one on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Chart and the Billboard Classical Album Chart and also peaked at #22 on the Billboard Top 200.

On April 29th, 2014 Lindsey released her new album Shatter Me, which debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, her highest charting album to date. The album features 12 new songs written by Lindsey and includes collaborations with lead singer Lzzy Hale from the Grammy winning band Halestorm and The Voice runner-up Dia Frampton of Meg & Dia. “I really dug deep and poured my heart into Shatter Me,” said Lindsey. “Everything from the artwork to the music shares a cohesive message that I hope will inspire others to push their own boundaries.”

Elements - Lindsey Stirling (Dubstep Violin Original Song)

It is hard to believe that Piers Morgan told Lindsey Stirling the world had no place for a dancing dubstep violinist. But being voted off 2010’s “America’s Got Talent” at the quarterfinals turned out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Rejection simply strengthened Stirling’s resolve to be herself. “The same reasons I was told I wouldn’t succeed are the reasons people travel hundreds of miles to see me now,” she laughs. “Because it’s different. Because it’s something you haven’t seen before…” Since the show, Lindsey has flourished as an artist.

Raised in a Mormon community in Arizona, Lindsey studied classical music rigorously as a teenager. Lindsey’s love for the violin would not let go, and it became a comfort throughout her struggle with an eating disorder during her early adulthood. Through this passion, Lindsey has created a new music world where the romance of Celtic folk music and modern classical meet the infectious energy of dance and electronica.

Master of Tides - Lindsey Stirling

On stage, Stirling moves with the grace of a ballerina but works the crowd into a frenzy, “dropping the beat” like a rave fairy. Stirling is the model of a modern independent recording artist, with a symbiotic relationship with her fans. She is famed for taking “requests” and has recorded unique versions of the themes from “Phantom Of The Opera” and “Game Of Thrones”, the computer games “Zelda,” “Pokemon,” and “Skyrim,” as well as pop songs by Michael Jackson and Rihanna; She uploads them all to Lindseystomp, a secondary YouTube channel packed with music videos and short comedy films, many featuring her alter-ego – a ‘superfan’ named Phelba.

A motivational speaker in her spare time, Stirling uses her own story to show teenagers that you’ve got to have confidence in the very thing that makes you unique – then wait for the world to catch up.

Lord of the Rings Medley - Lindsey Stirling

.

'College GameDay' a major coup for Cats - as in University of Arizona

.

Publisher's note - Arizona is my alma mater...

If your school is selected to host ESPN’s “College GameDay”, it’s like somebody scheduled a parade and everybody you know is going to be there.

About two million people climb out of bed every Saturday morning to watch the show and it almost never disappoints. It’s Army-Navy, Kansas-Missouri and in 2001, 2001, 2008 and 2009 it was Texas-Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry.

Eleven hours before Saturday’s Arizona-UCLA kickoff, GameDay will be live on the UA mall.

“It’s cool,” said UA junior nose tackle Sani Fuimaono. “It’s what I used to wake up to watch when I was in high school.”

GameDay goes beyond cool. What’s a good word? Nirvana. It’s got to have a little music to it.

GameDay used to be snooty. It used to be Alabama-Auburn and Nebraska-Notre Dame, and an excessive diet of Wolverines, Volunteers and Buckeyes.

But over the last 15 years, GameDay has become monument to all the people of college football. It has given us Harvard-Penn, Army-Navy, Southern-Grambling and, believe it or not, North Dakota State-Incarnate Word.

The NDSU Bison hosted GameDay twice. That’s one more time than Arizona State, whose lone appearance as a host was in 2005. (The Sun Devils lost to No. 1 USC, 38-28).

“It’s gonna be big,” Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said Monday. “I’m tickled to death they are here.”

GameDay was once the center of all “East coast bias” in college sports. Its first 24 locations were so far from the Pac-12 that when it finally erected a stage for the November 1998 Oregon-at-UCLA game — its first game at a Pac-12 venue — that the crew looked around Pasadena and realized “hey, this is where they play the Rose Bowl!”

But until Pete Carroll turned USC into a powerhouse, GameDay went 49 consecutive shows, from early 2001 to late 2004 — without a Pac-12 host.

All of that has changed. USC has since been host to 10 GameDay shows; Oregon eight.

Arizona and Stanford have twice been hosts. No other Pac-12 school has had more than one hosting role; Washington State and Cal have none.

“Just to show off our campus and the city of Tucson; it’s all positive,” RichRod said.

ESPN won’t divulge the identity of GameDay’s much-anticipated “guest picker” until Saturday.

In 2009, when Arizona lost 44-41 to Oregon in its Tucson GameDay debut, the guest picker was Olympic swimming gold medalist Amanda Beard. She was underwhelming, to put it politely.

Perhaps this time GameDay will fly Arizona alumnus Bob Baffert in from a California race track. Or maybe Steve Kerr can squeeze in a visit before the Golden State Warriors open training camp. They would fit nicely with the list of guest-picking celebrities that have ranged from Ken Griffey Jr., father of UA receiver Trey Griffey to Alice Cooper and Bubba Watson.

The appeal of GameDay is now part of America’s football fabric. This is Year 23, but ESPN didn’t always have such a willing audience.

When ESPN decided to televise the 100th meeting between Division III football rivals Amherst and Williams, the Lord Jeffs against the Ephs, the Amherst administration of 1985 balked.

They left the decision to football coach Jim Ostendarp, who famously said “we’re in the education business, not the entertainment business.”

You almost expected a poetry reading.

Twenty-two years later, the Ephs and Lord Jeffs met again, a showdown for the 2007 Little Three championship, and when ESPN’s GameDay crew erected a stage three days in advance, the population of Williamstown grew and grew and grew, from 2,500 to almost 14,000.

People camped on every available plot of grass near the Massachusetts-Vermont border.

When the ESPN people flipped the switch early Saturday morning, downtown Williamstown was transformed into a mobile fraternity party. Dozens of people dressed in purple cow costumes (the Eph mascot is a purple cow). Others held signs that said “FEAR THE COW” and “AMWORST MUST GO.”

On Saturday morning at the UA mall, scores of bleary-eyed Wildcat fans will sway behind the GameDay stage. If you’re going to be part of the crowd, jot down these words and put them on a red and blue sign:

PLEASE COME BACK

ESPN News

The original wildcat mascot arrived on campus October 17, 1915, and was introduced to the student body the following day at assembly in Herring Hall.

.

Pythagoras & Aristotle Report on March Madness - How peculiar those Americans - The Sweet Sixteen

.

Enough from the sports analysts, arm chair point guards, loud mouth fanatics, news and entertainment personalities, geeks and computers, after two or three rounds, the first of many odd math facts attached to March Madness, we have sixteen teams left.

The bracket says three rounds were played but reality says we went from 64 to 32 teams (1st round), then 32 to 16 teams (2nd round).  My math says two rounds.  We have left 16 to 8 (3rd round), 8 to 4 (4th round), 4 to 2 (5th round), and the championship (6th round).  Since when did a play in by a couple of teams constitute a tournament round?

Clearly, no one involved in the billion dollar March Madness money machine worries about details like accuracy, math, or specifics, just the bottom line.  Well the bottom line started out with Kentucky the favorite and after two or three rounds, nothing has changed.

The first rounds destroyed the East coast, or specifically the Northeast, as a perennial powerhouse of teams which seems a logical shift, but that is part of the analysis to come.

For insights free of the often-hysterical outbursts by all our specialists, I have channeled Pythagoras, ancient Greek mathematician, and Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher, to get their analysis of what is going on.

First, they offered as background a review of the definition of "Madness", as used in the made-for-TV phrase March Madness.  Does the term "Madness" contribute to the branding of the NCAA championship?

Here is their composite definition:

mad·ness

noun

Madness

The definition of madness:

1. insanity, mental illness, dementia, derangement, lunacy, instability

2. folly, foolishness, idiocy, stupidity, insanity, lunacy, silliness 

3. frenzied or chaotic activity

The synonyms for various states of madness:

1. mania, psychosis,

2. craziness

3. bedlam, mayhem, chaos, pandemonium, craziness, uproar, turmoil, disorder, all hell broken loose, (three-ring) circus

According to my learned ancients, it would appear the term indeed describes the state of chaos resulting from March Madness.

Pythagoras was most interested in the mathematical puzzles, assumptions, thesis and hypothesis involved in seeding, results, conferences, and all the other trivia associated with the payoffs.  Some of his observations included conference power rating, note the numbers represent the conference standings of the tournament teams, not the NCAA seedings.

So far through the first two or three rounds here are conference results.

Atlantic Coast Conference

Conference champion (1) Virginia lost

(2) Duke, (3) Notre Dame, (4) Louisville, (5) North Carolina, (7) North Carolina State won

Pac 12

One team lost

(1) Arizona, (2) Utah, and (4) UCLA won

Big East

Top five teams lost

Only (6) Xavier remains

Big Ten

Five teams lost

(1) Wisconsin and (3) Michigan State remain

Big 12

Five teams lost

(3) Oklahoma and (4) West Virginia remain

SEC

Four teams lost

(1) Kentucky remains

Missouri Valley

One team lost

(1) Wichita State won

West Coast

One team lost

(1) Gonzaga remains

Pythagoras is also curious about the relationship between tournament seedings, and actual results to date, so here are the stats.

Seeds Surviving

 1.        three teams  Kentucky, Wisconsin, Duke

 2.        two teams     Arizona, Gonzaga

 3.        two teams     Notre Dame, Oklahoma

 4.        two teams     North Carolina, Louisville

 5.        two teams     West Virginia, Utah

 6.        one team       Xavier

 7.        two teams     Wichita State, Michigan State

 8.        one team       North Carolina State

11.        one team       UCLA

Other Pythagorean factoids to bear in mind:

No team whose name began with a "V" survived the opening rounds, four teams lost.

Three teams whose name began with a "N" and three whose name began with a "W" made the Sweet Sixteen, along with two whose name began with "U".

North Carolina was the state with the most teams, three, while Kentucky and California had two teams each.

Roughly speaking, the geographic distribution of teams is:

Northeast - 1

Southeast - 3

Midwest - 8

West - 4

Of those from the Midwest, six were east of the Mississippi River, and two were west of the Mississippi River.

As far as mascots, which interested Aristotle, here are the teams, seeding and mascots.  As you can see, there are two Wildcats, Kentucky and Arizona, and little else in common among the schools.  Aristotle seemed most interested in the Spartans of Michigan State.

1 Kentucky Wildcats       

1 Duke Blue Devils      

1 Wisconsin Badgers    

2 Arizona Wildcats       

2 Gonzaga Bulldogs ('Zags)        

3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish   

3 Oklahoma Sooners     

4 Louisville Cardinals      

4 North Carolina Tar Heels      

5 Utah Utes        

5 West Virginia Mountaineers    

6 Xavier Muskeeters          

7  Michigan State Spartans     

7 Wichita State Shockers  

8 NC State Wolfpack       

11 UCLA Bruins

 

   

Of course one stat that is not in the formula is the fan intensity and the cheerleader impact and we can thank the lowest seeded team for bringing along the highest rated cheerleaders to the tourney, eleven seeded UCLA.

So what do my friends Pythagoras & Aristotle think of this unique American past time? 

Stay tuned.

.

March Madness - If not Kentucky Wildcats, then Arizona Wildcats

.

The following is a fun story by Ricky O'Donnell, in which you are given a choice if you don't want Kentucky winning your pool. Since I played basketball at Arizona, I support the choice.  Go Cats, as in Arizona. 

Pick Arizona, not Kentucky, to win your NCAA bracket

By Ricky O'Donnell  @SBN_Ricky on Mar 16, 2015

Everyone is going to tab Kentucky to win the NCAA Tournament. That's no way to win a big office pool.

There's no wrong way to fill out an NCAA Tournament bracket. You could pick the more ferocious mascot or choose teams by which color you like better. You could flip a coin or ask your dog. You could go straight chalk or randomly pick a bunch of upsets. At this point, any of these methods is time-tested and Internet-approved.

Or you could be like everyone else and just choose Kentucky to win it all.

I did it, too. The Wildcats enter the tournament as the heaviest favorite in recent memory. Listen to the way people talk about John Calipari's team this year and you'd think the NCAA Tournament might be better served with a Royal Rumble-style format, with Kentucky entering the ring first and needing to crush all 67 of the other challengers to be crowned champions. Most people still probably wouldn't pick against them.

You're going to hear one bit of analysis repeated ad nauseam over the next few days: Kentucky has absolutely been dominant, but it's not unbeatable. Ole Miss barely made the field of 68, and the Rebels took Kentucky to overtime. Texas A&M missed the field and it pushed the Wildcats to two overtimes. Buffalo and Columbia are just two of the teams that led Kentucky at halftime. The Wildcats haven't been beaten, but that doesn't mean they're perfect.

You know this. I know this. Everyone knows this. Chances are, you're still picking Kentucky. It's the best pick if you're trying to choose the team that's going to win the NCAA Tournament. It might not be the best pick if you're trying to win your office bracket pool.

If everyone picks Kentucky and Kentucky wins the championship, that means the person with the bracket that's most accurate in the early rounds is going to take home the pool. The more people in your pool, the harder this becomes.

But what if you don't take Kentucky? By choosing a different champion, it's conceivable that the rest of your bracket could overcome a lot of inaccurate picks to still win the pool as long as you hit on an overall winner that no one else has.

When everyone zigs, you zag. It just makes sense. That's why it might be smart to pick Arizona to win the national championship this year.

Sean Miller's program was becoming West Coast Kentucky even before this season. Calipari is the only coach recruiting better than Miller is right now. Arizona isn't as talented as Kentucky, but you can make the argument this is the second most complete roster in the country. Miller also has them peaking at the right time.

When the year started, Arizona was only behind Kentucky in the polls. They haven't done much to discredit that preseason opinion. Yes, Arizona lost to two teams with triple-digit KenPom rankings next to their name in UNLV and Oregon State. The fanbase was even more upset over a loss to Arizona State in February. As the season has progressed, though, those bad losses are looking more like outliers.

Realtime Bracket Game

Arizona has run off 11 straight wins since losing to ASU. It tore through the Pac-12 Tournament, beating a quality Oregon team by 28 points in the title game. In terms of size, athleticism, NBA-level talent and an ability to play both ends of the floor, Arizona is about as well-rounded as a major conference contender gets.

Arizona finished with the No. 1 defense in the country last year as a team powered by No. 4 overall draft pick Aaron Gordon and conference player of the year Nick Johnson. Freshman Stanley Johnson and sophomore Rondae Hollis-Jefferson replaced Johnson and Gordon in the starting lineup this year, and the defense hasn't dropped off at all -- it actually got better. Arizona finished No. 3 in defensive efficiency this season behind Virginia and Kentucky, but it allowed two fewer points per 100 possessions than it last season.

Miller uses the same packline defensive scheme that Tony Bennett does at Virginia with devastating effectiveness. The difference is at the other end of the floor, where Arizona has proven this roster to better equipped to score in bunches than the team Miller had last season.

It starts with Johnson, a presumed top 10 draft pick in June and an 18-year-old most often described as a "man-child." He's a 240-pound perimeter player who isn't just strong for a college kid -- he's strong for an adult. It took Johnson some time to find his footing within Arizona's offense, but he's been great lately, ascending all the way up to No. 2 in KenPom's player of the year rankings.

Johnson leads the team in scoring at 14 points per game, but Arizona never really needs him in takeover mode. All five starters are capable of putting the ball in the basket, and reserves Gabe York and Elliott Pitts come off the bench to add shooting. When Arizona goes small with Johnson at the four and York sliding next to starting point guard T.J. McConnell, the added driving lanes and shooting makes the offense even harder to defend.

Arizona didn't get an easy draw. A potential Elite Eight rematch with Wisconsin might be the best game of the tournament after the Badgers won by one in overtime a year ago. Baylor has the athletes to matchup with Arizona in a potential Sweet 16 game, too. And if Miller's team gets all the way to the Final Four, Kentucky should be waiting.

This season has felt like "Kentucky vs. the field" from the start, and Kentucky has justified it by handily winning every big game they've been in. It's not really up for debate that Kentucky is easy pick to win the NCAA Tournament. It just isn't an easy pick to help you win your pool.

.