Panda Cup / So long and thanks for all the fish

What do you mean you've never heard of the Panda Cup?!
Aggie Soccer Team Ends Spring with Panda Cup Win

The Panda Cup is a two-week tour of Texas and Oklahoma by two Chinese teams. During the tour, the Chinese A team will play Texas A&M, SMU, TCU, UNT and Tulsa, while the B team will play all-star youth teams. The A team is a hybrid team of players from the National Team Pool, the National University Selection, a National Selection from professional teams, and a combination of current Olympic Pool Players. (excerpt from aggiesports.com, 3/31/06 special to the eagle.)

"They're selling this suburban Virginia basketball team at the Final Four harder than the National Zoo is selling Tai Shan"

(What-EV-er. Zoos don't sell pandas, pandas sell themselves. But I digress.) On with the post!

It's a tad after the fact, but here's an article from washingtonpost.com that dicusses the similarities between GMU's men's basketball and tai shan.

"Come see the cute and cuddly youngsters from the tiny program in the sticks. They come out to feed at noon. In the great spirit of muckraking, it is time to shovel out the panda pen, to pull back the curtain and expose the ugly underbelly of college basketball's confectionary dream team. It's time to find out the dirt on this slipper-fits squad. "

The "dirt" is that GMU's streak o' luck finally ran out. Well played fellas, well played, but this Cinderella story is ov-ah (pronounced a la Iron Chef)! Thanks for all the memories Pats, see ya next year!