"Three-Pointers" - January 7, 2022 (MMXXII)

[Joe Ross]

What's that saying -- It's not over till the fat lady sings?
Well, I think I hear someone practicing her scales....

Bunhilda, I presume?

[Joe Ross]

[Joe Ross]

[Laura M]

Wow. Didn't get it, but I love it.

[hoover]

Wow, I was way off base (oops, wrong sport!). I looked at all the 3LW, then all of the 3LW that total 3 points in Scrabble, then all of the words with 3-point letters (BCMP).

[escapeartist]

oof

[hcbirker]

That clue at 49 down had me going in all directions until I stopped looking up basketball stats. I took the puzzle with me when got in the car to visit my grandson an hour away on Saturday (my husband thought I was crazy) and lo and behold I found "three" in a diagonal. At first I thought it was going to be "alley oop" but fortunately I corrected myself.

[EmilyW]

D'oh! I didn't get it. I can't tell you how many times I try to look diagonally for words and it never works out, but of course I didn't try it this time.

[Scott M]

Nope. Never saw it. Rabbit holes I went down, thinking that the title might refer to three-letter words or three-syllable answers:

REO in OREO, STA in STAT, CHI in CHIPS, OHO in COHOSTS. Nothing.
The stressed syllables in the three-syllable answers, based on STRESS TEST. Nada.
Two-time NBA MVP? If not KARL MALONE, it could be Steve (N)ASH. "I Won't Back Down" singer? Could be TOM PETTY, Could be Johnny (C)ASH. Zippo.

Between a five-day power outage, and the puzzle, it's been a frustrating weekend.

[Inca]

Brilliant! I definitely "should" have gotten it....but did not.

[DrTom]

By the way, lest anyone take me seriously about "Hoosier" (or for that matter, almost anything), my theory was completely made up of course. The Cruise Director's actually has more credence (though he is not from Clearwater nor does he need to be revived) but even that is speculation. If you are interested see this article, (https://blog.history.in.gov/the-word-ho ... gin-story/) or the 100 page reference work mentioned therein.

[Kas]

Oof. I really should have seen that…but so well constructed that I just have to give due credit, take the Kas 3, and console myself with a sasparilla and Isaac’s jokes, again.

[TeaJenny]

What's that saying -- It's not over till the fat lady sings?
Well, I think I hear someone practicing her scales....

Bunhilda, I presume?

Oh, Bwunhilda! You're so wovewy!

[GTIJohnny]

The two THREE'S crossing in the NE quadrant "tipped" me off. The conglomeration of T's and R's looked suspect. I was on the alert immediately and solved rather quickly. I like that KARLMALONE had nothing to do with the solution...that was sly!

[eagle1279]

Hoosiers will understand why, instead of “ashore,” I wanted to post BOOM BABY! when I solved. But I was afraid it would be a spoiler.

So now I say, “BOOM BABY!”

RIP, Slick Leonard.

[mheberlingx100]

It took me a bit of time to get this one. I looked down countless 3 letter rabbit holes. Eventually i started checking diagonals, and it all fell into place.

Diagonals come into play quite infrequently. I only could remember one other puzzle with a similar mechanism. I searched through the archives and found Squeeze Play from September 2019 (baseball team names were in a diamond around the center of the grid).

[JeanneC]

At 11:48pm, I finished drumming my pencil, took one last look at the puzzle’s title and Hail Mary’ed “lay up”.
In the morning, I plan on going into my yard, finding a blind squirrel and gifting it with an acorn.

[sanmilton]

Just enjoyed a lovely Negroni with Isaac and companions on the boat. Sadly, I did not see the THREEs in the grid, although LAYUP seemed like a good possibility (like REBOUND). BLNT!

[caroline]

Nope. Never saw it. Rabbit holes I went down, thinking that the title might refer to three-letter words or three-syllable answers:
[...]
Two-time NBA MVP? If not KARL MALONE, it could be Steve (N)ASH. "I Won't Back Down" singer? Could be TOM PETTY, Could be Johnny (C)ASH. Zippo.

YES! I was SO sure that the ASH/Nash/Cash thing was going to be significant. Wow, just wow.

[Omnibus]

My initial rabbit holes was seeing the center word “easel” which stands on three points like a tripod, and search for sets where a letter is surrounded by three of the same letter. There were several occurrences of that in the grid, but none of them - neither the center letters nor the surrounding ones - spelt out anything meaningful. So I put it down for a bit, then later realized the threes were themselves pointers. Picking the grid up again, they all jumped out at me.