dAYoNE

All of that waiting, and we finally got an upset that we could blog home about. This Thursday has always been my favourite day of the year. Sfter waiting for so long, it was tipoff time on a ritual that I've kept since the 1970's. Now, my faithful readers know that I just want to talk about that Depaul loss and us sneaking into that lutheren school so we could shoot hoops until the early A.M. I also wanna talk about that great Loyola team in 1985, the I.U. team in 1987, the Fab 5, Laettner's shot--wait, lets stop while we're still in the early '90's. Lets talk about that shit next time.

Day one yesterday was a ripe bit sad. So we got one upset. Everyone seems to really like that Duke lost to Virginia Commonwealth. Same here. I look @ it as a #11 going to the next round. I didn't bet, so I can root for whoever I want, unfettered by predictions. My criteria is as follows:

Alma Matars= None made it
Local Teams= Illinois, Southern, Marquette, Wisconsin, Indiana, etc
Catholic teams=Xavier, Notre Dame (both'd be more or less local), Georgetown, etc...
Any low seed=Weber State, Penn, New mexico State
Someone I like= Coach Knight

So, yesterday sucked. I got some stuff I liked, sorta= Butler, the one and only team I saw play live this year and is 'local', beat Old Dominion-but if they had lost, then good for #12 O.D. Indiana beat #10 Gonzaga. Xavier, #9, beat #8 BYU. B.C. won, but beat Texas Tech- too bad. And the Duke result.

Otherwise, it was pretty bad. No other stunning upsets. No close finishes. There have been opendays I've have less love for, but this one was pretty tepid. Marquette was just out of it. Eastern kentucky gave us the 2d biggest thrill, closing on big bad #1 seed North Carolina after losing by 27 points. As soon as they cut it to four points, CBS turned us to that game--and THEN North Carolina showed up. Sheesh- we missed the huge comeback, but just got tuned to it for the rout. But for a second there- actually, five seconds, since Eastern had just cut it to four when some N.C. monster just sprinted to the basket untouched on the next play-we though we had a game. Nope.

Saw the later games with The Angry Pacifist. It's funny, how this tournement works on people. We started to get excited about the NC-Eastern K. game when they were updating the scores, and we found ourselves for the first and last time huge Eastern K. fans. Now, of course, our reaction is "What school?" But for a second there-or, five seconds- we looked into the possibility of the thing. Not this Thursday.

But today is Friday, the second day. Lets discover the possibilities..................