Elite Eight or Eight Elite?
The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is one of the most exciting sporting events in the US. Unlike the NBA playoffs, what makes the college tourney so fascinating is that every game is an elimination match. On the first 4-day weekend games are played throughout the day as the field gets whittled down from 64 teams to 16 teams. The remaining teams are called the Sweet Sixteen.
The original meaning of that expression probably dates back to the 19th century in the US, referring to the 16th birthday party for girls, as a coming-of-age celebration. It’s an odd association for men’s basketball to begin with, since none of the participants are girls or are 16. But the alliterative expression has been around for a long time and isn’t going away.
On the second weekend of the tournament, the 16 teams get reduced to four. Those final four teams are called the Final Four. Not a very imaginative description, but it has similar alliteration as Sweet Sixteen and rolls off the tongue nicely. The Final Four then play the next weekend, into Monday, to decide the champion.
Now here’s where it gets silly. Some years ago, someone decided that they needed a moniker for the eight teams that remain after the initial round of the Sweet Sixteen weekend. The term Elite Eight has been used in basketball tournaments for a long time, such as the Illinois high school playoffs and the NCAA Division II playoffs. But in both of those cases, the eight teams had a specific association to the eight regions that qualified for the tournament. In the NCAA Division I, the eight teams are just a temporary position on Friday night. The Sweet Sixteen has a weekend, and the Final Four has a weekend. Why do we need a name for the half-way point?
The phrase Elite Eight doesn’t even have the pizzazz of Sweet Sixteen and Final Four. Sure, it has the quasi-alliteration of the initial E, but the pronunciation isn’t even the same. Elite starts with a long E, while Eight starts with the sound of a long A. And it surely doesn’t roll of the tongue. You have to pronounce the final T sound in Elite before pronouncing Eight, which makes it jerky.
Personally, I think Eight Elite would improve its aesthetic quality. Try it. Say “Elite Eight” three times. Then say “Eight Elite” three times. Don’t you agree that Eight Elite rolls off the tongue better? It’s because you can cheat on the pronunciation and make the T in Eight sound like a D, as in A-da-leet. If you try that with Elite Eight, it comes out as Ely-date. Not good.
Say it often. Google it. Eight Elite! Eight Elite! Eight Elite!
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