The Sweet Sixteen

For those of you who don't care a whit about basketball, stop reading now. If you're as much an addict as I am, then press on, MacDuff ...

So, how did YOU do in your picks last weekend? I was 27/32 in the first and second rounds, and correctly picked 14 out of the Sweet 16. I'm sure there are those of you out there who did better than I, but really, did anyone get them all? Other than my husband, did anyone pick Western Kentucky to defeat Illinois? Did anyone expect Cleveland State to knock off Wake Forest? Maybe one or the other, but not both, right?

Funny thing about Cleveland State - they've only been in the NCAA tournament twice in history. The last time they played? Defeated Indiana in the first round. They were seeded #14 and we were #3, and CSU won 83-79. The WGH and I were still in school then - he actually went to Syracuse with the band for that game. Everyone expected them to stay for the whole weekend. It was a dismal 14-hour bus ride home for the pep band, he tells me.

That was in 1986; Indiana went on to win the National Championship the following year. The really crazy thing is this - I discovered a couple of rather interesting similarities between the 1981 and 1987 championships, an uncanny coincidence that may never happen again, at least in my lifetime. In both cases, the National Champion was the same for the previous year - Louisville (1980 and 1986). And, both the games that we won in '81 and '87 were played on my birthday. How's that for weird? I've been waiting 22 years for this pattern to repeat itself, but so far it hasn't happened.

It's rainy and cool here in the South today. A perfect day for staying in and getting some things accomplished.

Read a book. Or watch a game. It's good for you.

=) JB

"If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
-- Albert Einstein, US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955), Observer, Jan. 15, 1950