The Oracle THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 I VOL. 52 NO. 96
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The Index
Opinion.......................................................4 Classifieds..............................................8
Crossword......................................10 sports.........................................................12
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
Bulls set to defend the Dome By Zach Lowie S T A F F
W R I T E R
After the best regular season performance in program history, USF will look to continue that success in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday against LSU. Coach Jose Fernandez has said all year his team has talent, and its rise into national spotlight has come at a swift pace. Fernandez said the privilege of having a home-court advantage for the first two rounds definitely won’t hurt USF’s cause. “Our kids are familiar with the environment,” Fernandez said. “We’re going to have our season ticket holders, students and the Tampa Bay community here supporting us and it’ll be great.” USF was second in the AAC in attendance behind UConn and averaged almost 2,000 fans each game. Fernandez said the rigorous non-conference schedule earlier in the season has prepared the Bulls for their tournament experi-
ence. Junior guard Courtney Williams said it’s strictly business against LSU. Though the Sun Dome is expected to be packed, she feels no pressure come Saturday. “We’ve been working all season,” she said. “Now it’s time for us to show the world what South Florida is all about.” Even with such a remarkable season behind them, Williams has acknowledged the late-season loss to East Carolina as a wake-up call that reminds the team there’s always potential for someone to knock the Bulls off their pedestal. “That (loss) was great motivation,” Williams said. “It was very humbling for us and I think every team needs that kind of humbling moment.” The Bulls have had prolific scoring this season, and average a +12.5 point scoring margin compared to the Lady Tigers’ 3.2 due to a weak defensive presence. USF has maintained this high separation even with one-sided losses against UConn in the regu-
lar season. If they can keep up their current pace, then there will be no outdoing the Bulls’ talented starting five. USF forwards Laura Ferreira and Alisia Jenkins will try to continue their dominant play by outmatching LSU in the paint. The duo combined for almost 21 points and 16 rebounds per game in the regular season, nearly double the efforts of LSU forwards Anne Pedersen and Sheila Boykin. Williams and the team are focusing on LSU’s guard play, which is three players deep — with starting talent in Danielle Ballard and Raigyne Moncrief, and DaShawn Harden coming off the bench, the three players combine to score an average of 37 points per game for the Lady Tiger’s offense. Even though LSU (17-13) is often outrebounded down low, its percentage from beyond the arc is one of the best in the SEC at almost 35 percent. USF (26-7) is often considered a strong team from three, but its season average is just over
n See DOME on PAGE 5
The women’s basketball team and coach Jose Fernandez gathered Wednesday at Marshall Mayhem to build hype for their first game of the NCAA Tournament this saturday. ORACLE PHOTO/ADAM MATHIEU
Lecture shares wisdom of tomfoolery By Zach Leete S T A F F
W R I T E R
When Randy Pausch gave his famous “Last Lecture” after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he stressed the importance of not taking life too seriously. On Wednesday night, sociology professor Shawn Bingham mirrored that message with “My Days and Nights Researching What Funny Does … Seriously.” More than 150 students and faculty attended Bingham’s lecture at the Marshall Student Center Oval Theater. “I want to start by saying and warn you that I am not very funny,” Bingham said. “I know there’s some uncomfortable laughter there. I’m an academ-
ic — we deal with theses, not jokes. Theses are the antithesis of jokes.” Though Bingham said he isn’t dying anytime soon, he lectured as if it was his last chance on earth. The speakers of the Last Lecture Series are asked to give a presentation based on the question, “If you were to have one last chance to speak to a group of students, what would your message be?” Bingham’s message was clear: “Humor reveals important boundaries in everyday life.” “If it’s true that people who don’t like sports become sports journalists, and frustrated novelists become English professors, people who are not funny
study humor,” he said. Nonetheless, the audience was kept entertained throughout the hour-long lecture while Bingham discussed forms of humor and their uses. Relief humor helps the user navigate life and issues. Incongruity humor points out the difference between expectation and reality. Selfdeprecation asks us to not take ourselves so seriously. There’s even police humor that is developed to defuse hostile situations without resorting to violence. “I have a serious bias against people who take themselves too seriously,” Bingham said. “These people have shorter life expectancies, are less accepting, less flexible and while they
are around they want the rest of us to be miserable with them.” Bingham said the absence of irony in academia is disturbing. Logically, an industry that prides itself on critical thinking should embrace the ability to laugh at oneself. For 1.73 million published articles about depression, he said there are only 280,461 about humor — a 6-to-1 ratio. “One of the critiques mounted against looking at humor has been that like analyzing a poem, having to tell why something is funny kind of kills it,” Bingham said. “But like a flower or an animal, you have to kill a joke in order to study it.” In his classrooms, Bingham said he uses humor to break up the illusionary hierarchy that
separates students and professors. “Some humility and some self-deprecation makes you — and there’s research on this — more likeable,” he said. “I could suggest that academia could use a little more of this.” When used correctly, Bingham said humor is a tool for dealing with other human beings. “Humor can be a shield, an invitation, a way to process and make sense of everyday life,” he said. “It can be a way to connect things that are seemingly unrelated. It can be a flashlight that unveils hypocrisy, inconsistency, or even the fact in my case, that someone is taking something (more) importantly than it needs to be.”