If you read the fun facts for the men’s UNC game, then this is the same idea. A Syracuse basketball team in the Final Four. What a crazy, improbable, implausible time to be alive.

Get to know Syracuse’s (29-7, 13-3 Atlantic Coast) only obstacle to the national championship — the Seattle-based No. 7 seed Washington (26-10, 11-7 Pac-12) — before the game on Sunday with these 10 facts:

1. Never need a doctor again

Between 10 and 12 billion apples are handpicked in Washington each year, making it the largest apple producing state in the second-largest apple-producing country in the world. Three out of every five apples in U.S. grocery stores are from the Evergreen State.

2. There goes the sun

Before people had brand marketers and were #ImageConscious, UW called its athletic teams the Sun Dodgers. But in 1919, people said, “Hmmm. This doesn’t make the school look good.” Students protested the choice of “Vikings” and finally, in 1922, the school settled on Huskies.

3. It’s poppin’

U-Dub, as it’s often called, housed the invention of bubble gum, vinyl, synthetic rubber and the color TV tube.

4. The wave beef

There’s a large controversy surrounding who invented the wave, and when. The UW site claims the Husky band director Bill Bissell did, but there are numerous other theories, the most popular of which credits pro cheerleader Krazy George Henderson for the Oakland Athletics. ESPN dug into the story and decided, after 4,000 words, that Krazy invented the wave, but Washington named it and did the most to spread it.

5. Can’t touch this

One spring evening in 1929, university president Matthew Lyle Spencer was walking around on campus when he saw a couple “spooning.” He promptly enacted a campus-wide ban on kissing.

6. The line at office hours must’ve been brutal

When UW began in 1861, it had 30 students and one professor. Tuition cost $5 per quarter and $10 for Greek and Latin students. Clara Antionette McCarty Wilt, which sounds like a law firm, was actually the university’s first graduate.

7. I don’t know, look it up

Of any university, public or private, Washington receives the second-most federal funding for research, only trailing Johns Hopkins.

8. Hey Joe

Jimi Hendrix, a Seattle native, dropped out of school at 15 and, by 19, was caught twice riding in stolen cars. He had the choice: Jail or the Army. He chose basic training, was honorably discharged a year later and began a music career that’d leave the world in a purple haze.

9. Birthday Suits

There are three days of the year where Seattleites strip off their clothes to do something strange. There’s the No Pants Light Rail Ride, “Go as bare as you dare” naked pumpkin runs every October and the nude bike ride for the Fremont Solstice Celebration. This must be a ploy to keep Seattle and Portland, Oregon even on the weird scale.

10. Ballin’ on a budget

At roughly $34,000, Washington is the second-least expensive school in the Final Four, slightly more expensive that Oklahoma.

Published on April 1, 2016 at 2:38 am

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR