Fun Friday Fact - hope you respond weekly to give us all a smile

[Heather Shay]

1. The first tourney was organized by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Oregon beat Ohio State 46-33 in the first championship game.

2. The Final Four is held in a different city each year. Indianapolis, where the NCAA is based, hosts the Final Four every five years until 2040.

3. Each winning university receives a rectangular, gold-plated trophy made of wood.

4. Early on, the NCAA was considered a lesser event to the National Invitation Tournament, held in New York City. Teams could compete in both events.

5. The 1949–50 CCNY team won both the NIT and NCAA tournaments (besting Bradley both times).

6. In 1971 the NCAA barred universities from playing in the NIT and other tournaments if they were invited to the Big Dance.

7. In 1978, the NCAA began using the term “Final Four” officially; the name was soon trademarked.

8. The 2013 championship won by Louisville and coach Rick Pitino was the first title to be vacated (recruiting scandal).

9. Twice in the past 10 years, the Final Four featured three coaches making their first appearance. In 2019, it was first-timers Tony Bennett (Virginia), Chris Beard (Texas Tech) and Bruce Pearl (Auburn). In 2017, it was Frank Martin (South Carolina), Dana Altman (Oregon) and Mark Few (Gonzaga). The champion in 2017 was North Carolina, which won in coach Roy Williams’ ninth trip to the Final Four.

10. NBC first began broadcasting the Final Four in 1969. CBS later bought the broadcast rights.

11. The 1979 championship game between Larry Bird's Indiana State and Magic Johnson's Michigan State attracted the most-ever television viewers.

12. UCLA has won the most championships (11; 10 of those came in a 12-year run from 1964 to 1975, including seven in a row from 1967 to 1973). Kentucky is next with eight titles, following by North Carolina (6), Duke and Indiana (5).

13. John Wooden is the all-time coaching leader with 10 championships. Coach K of Duke is second with 5.

14. In 2017, UNC was the first team to make 20 Final Fours. The Heels haven’t gone more than 10 years without reaching a Final Four.

15. BYU holds the record for the most tourney appearances (30) without making the Final Four.

16. The NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament was inaugurated in the 1981–82 season.

17. The women’s tournament was preceded by the AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament, held annually from 1972 to 1982.

18. In 2016, the women’s championship game was moved to the Tuesday following the Monday men's championship game. Before that, the women’s final was played the weekend before the men’s.

19. Beginning in 2022, the women's tournament features a 68-team bracket like the men's tournament, with play-in games. There are 36 at-large bids.

20. In 2021, the entire NCAA tournament was played in Texas; most games, including the Final Four, were played in San Antonio, and some in Austin and San Marcos. 

[Ashley0616]

The heart of man pumps 48 million gallons (182 million liters) of blood for his life.

[Heather Shay]

A U.S. dollar bill can be folded approximately 4,000 times in the same place before it will tear.

-You cannot snore and dream at the same time.

-The average person walks the equivalent of three times around the world in a lifetime.

-A hippo’s wide open mouth is big enough to fit a 4-foot-tall child in.

-Chewing gum while you cut an onion will help keep you from crying.

[Ashley0616]

50 thousand cells in your body die and are replaced with new ones while you are reading this sentence.

[Heather Shay]

• The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is believed to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

[Mirrabooka]

In 2014, a missing woman on vacation in Iceland was found when it was discovered that she was in the search party looking for herself.

[Ashley0616]

The embryo acquires fingerprints at the age of 3 months.

[Heather Shay]

• The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is believed to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

[Heather Shay]

CAT FACTS

A cat's jaw cannot move sideways.

The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat

 

• A house cat’s genome is 95.6 percent tiger, and they share many behaviors with their jungle ancestors, says Layla Morgan Wilde, a cat behavior expert and the founder of Cat Wisdom 101. These behaviors include scent marking by scratching, prey play, prey stalking, pouncing, chinning, and urine marking.
• Cats are believed to be the only mammals who don’t taste sweetness.
• Cats are nearsighted, but their peripheral vision and night vision are much better than that of humans.
• Cats are supposed to have 18 toes (five toes on each front paw; four toes on each back paw).
• Cats can jump up to six times their length.
• Cats’ claws all curve downward, which means that they can’t climb down trees head-first. Instead, they have to back down the trunk.
• Cats’ collarbones don’t connect to their other bones, as these bones are buried in their shoulder muscles.
• Cats have 230 bones, while humans only have 206.
• Cats have an extra organ that allows them to taste scents on the air, which is why your cat stares at you with her mouth open from time to time.
• Cats have whiskers on the backs of their front legs, as well.
• Cats have nearly twice the amount of neurons in their cerebral cortex as dogs.
• Cats have the largest eyes relative to their head size of any mammal.
• Cats make very little noise when they walk around. The thick, soft pads on their paws allow them to sneak up on their prey — or you!
• Cats’ rough tongues can lick a bone clean of any shred of meat.
• Cats use their long tails to balance themselves when they’re jumping or walking along narrow ledges.
• Cats use their whiskers to “feel” the world around them in an effort to determine which small spaces they can fit into. A cat’s whiskers are generally about the same width as its body. (This is why you should never, EVER cut their whiskers.)
• Cats walk like camels and giraffes: They move both of their right feet first, then move both of their left feet. No other animals walk this way.
• Male cats are more likely to be left-pawed, while female cats are more likely to be right-pawed.
• Though cats can notice the fast movements of their prey, it often seems to them that slow-moving objects are actually stagnant.
• Some cats are ambidextrous, but 40 percent are either left- or right-pawed.
• Some cats can swim.
• There are cats who have more than 18 toes. These extra-digit felines are referred to as being “polydactyl.”

[Jani]

2 hours ago, Heather Shay said:

A house cat’s genome is 95.6 percent tiger, and they share many behaviors with their jungle ancestors

Oh Yes!   This one is so obvious to anyone who has had a cat and observed any Big Cat.

[Ashley0616]

– According to a recent survey, the most popular name for a dog is Max. Other popular names include Molly, Sam, Zach, and Maggie.

[KathyLauren]

8 hours ago, Heather Shay said:

CAT FACTS

A cat's jaw cannot move sideways.

The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat

 

• Cats are supposed to have 18 toes (five toes on each front paw; four toes on each back paw).
• Cats’ claws all curve downward, which means that they can’t climb down trees head-first. Instead, they have to back down the trunk.
• Cats make very little noise when they walk around. The thick, soft pads on their paws allow them to sneak up on their prey — or you!
• There are cats who have more than 18 toes. These extra-digit felines are referred to as being “polydactyl.”

 

One of our cats is polydactyl.  He has 7 toes on each front paw and 5 on each back paw, for 24 toes total.

 

Another one, an ex-feral who, at the time, was free to roam, climbed 50 feet up a tree without having any thought about how he was going to get down.  His pal climed down backwards, but he couldn't.  He ended up coming down by leaping from branch to branch.  Which nearly gave us heart attacks, because he only has one eye and therefore has no depth perception.

 

The other ex-feral (both are now indoor cats) obviously does not have those soft pads on his feet.  At night, when we are in bed, we can hear him stomping around the house.

[Davie]

On 4/12/2024 at 5:46 AM, Heather Shay said:

• The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is believed to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

Except for this thung thwister:

Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle sifter, in sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles, thrust three-thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb. Now if, Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle sifter, in sifting a sieve full of of unsifted thistles, thrust three-thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb, how many thistles can'st thou thrust through the thick of thy thumb . . . in sifting a sieve-full of unsifted thistles?
Success to the successful thistle sifter!

[Heather Shay]

Germany has more castles than there are McDonald's in the United States. Yep, you heard that right. Germany is estimated to have 25,000 castles, and there are around 13,000 McDonald's locations in America.

 

In Washington state, there's a real-life law stating it's illegal to kill bigfoot and other sasquatch-like creatures.

[Ashley0616]

The name "Mississippi" comes from the Anishinabe tribe of Native Americans; the word means "Father of Waters."

[Heather Shay]

1. Striking your head against the wall, you can lose 150 calories an hour.
2. Blue color attracts mosquitoes in two times more than any other.
3. Most toilet paper sold for home use in France is pink.
4. In 2014, a missing woman on a vacation in Iceland was found when it was discovered that she was in the search party looking for herself.
5. In 2005, Mark Zuckerberg unsuccessfully tried to sell Facebook for $75 million. Back then it was called TheFacebook.
6. Strawberries can also be white or yellow, and some can even taste like pineapples!
7. The Boston Marathon didn't allow female runners until 1972.
8. Banks have therapists known as wealth psychologist who help ultra-rich clients, who are unable to mentally cope with their immense wealth.

[Ivy]

4 hours ago, Heather Shay said:

Banks have therapists known as wealth psychologist who help ultra-rich clients, who are unable to mentally cope with their immense wealth.

Guess I won't need that kind of therapy. 

[April Marie]

Oh, how they must suffer. 

[Heather Shay]

• A fear of long words is called Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

[Davie]

14 minutes ago, Heather Shay said:

• A fear of long words is called Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

Yikes!

[Mirrabooka]

In 1979, when the Skylab space station was crashing back to earth, some debris was strewn across outback Australia. The mayor of a nearby town fined NASA $400 for littering! 

[Ivy]

4 hours ago, Heather Shay said:

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

That one is frightening.

[Heather Shay]

• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
• The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing (when using the proper position of the hands on the keyboard; Hunting and pecking doesn't count!).
• A shark is the only known fish that can blink with both eyes.

[Ivy]

Just now, Heather Shay said:

A shark is the only known fish that can blink with both eyes.

I might check this out with Blåhaj.

[Heather Shay]