As you might could tell, I love NCAA basketball. (I am NOT in any way much of an NBA fan. I rarely watch it prior to the playoffs, and there I tend to watch only the semis and finals, but not even all of those games.
With NCAA, I watch every minute of every Kentucky game (when I don’t forget when they’re playing. Sometimes my brain goes on one track, like one Saturday last December I got up late, got my coffee and started blogging, and the next thing I knew my Dad was calling me and said “They had it all along”. I said “What?” Then it hit me. It was about 2:00, and I had missed the entire Kentucky-Louisville game, which had been won by Kentucky on 3 three throws with a half second left (Patrick Sparks had been fouled on a three-point attempt just before the buzzer was about to sound).
Anyway, All three of my teams, my favorite (UK) and my former favorites (Louisville and Cincinnati) won their opening round games, UK and Cinci met (69-60 Kentucky, which I watched tape delayed since I was both nervous, and a bit down at the end of the day after the 2 year mark of the Iraq war, and felt that getting all excited about a basketball game would have been too strange a mix of emotions. So, feeling drained, I put in a VHS tape and went to bed at about 8:00 and kept the TV off from 7:00 on. At about 9:15, I woke up and decided to check the score —I was thinking it would be over. But there was 7 minutes left and it was 58-55 Kentucky. So I turned it back off and waited for another 20 minutes. I saw the score flash across the top as they were already switched over to W.Va-WakeForest who were about to go into overtime.)
Kentucky plays Utah tonight. Louisville won their sweet 16 game and will play West Virginia, who beat Texas Tech. Louisville and Kentucky would only meet in the Championship game. That’s what I had happening in my bracket. I had Louisville beating Illinois in the final 4, and Kentucky beating (whoops: Florida. They were a disappointment after entering the NCAA hot off an SEC tourney championship and beating Kentucky the final game of the regular season in Florida. They had risen out of the ashes from unranked to 18 as they entered the tourney with a 4 seed. So I had to pick them since they had downed Kentucky twice on consecutive Sundays. They barely won their game with 13 seed Ohio after blowing an 18 point lead in the second half. Then Villanova shut down Roberson completely, and held Walsh down as well, and Lee fouled out after scoring 20 points, and beat them by 12. Now ‘Nova gets Carolina (as in North).