3.30.2008

Ballin'

… By George she did it.

Never before have all four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four. It’s a statistic I’ve always figured heavily into filling out my brackets, and I took that into consideration again this year …

But my mother did it. She picked all four No.1 seeds. And it’s happened.

(For the record, I picked North Carolina, Memphis, UCLA and No. 3-seed Wisconsin in my bracket, and UCLA and Kansas and No. 2-seeds Tennessee and Texas in Baby’s bracket …)

And my heart is still pumping from that Kansas game

I’ve said it before -- I live and die with the Jayhawks. They’ve broken my heart every year for 18 springs now, since my family moved to Kansas and my love affair began …

But they blew it last year. There was Bucknell in '05. And Bradley in '06. And 2003 and 1997 when they should have won it all ... And given how well Davidson has been playing, I was ready for another roller coaster this afternoon ...

It was tight all through the first half. It remained tight into the second half ...

Around the 9-minute mark with Davidson leading by one, I was wrapped up in my blanket and mumbling, Great, here we go again ...

And then at the one minute-mark, with Davidson still well involved, I was on the couch, in the fetal position, and my blanket covering all but my eyes ...

Wrenching were those last 10 seconds with Davidson's Stephen Curry taking the ball, totally looking for that winning three-point shot ... But the Kansas defense shut him down, and when the ball bounced from the backboard and the final mili-second ticked away, my head -- and the blanket -- shot up from the couch. And my eyes welled up ...

So we're all good ... For now.

But we're up against North Carolina next weekend.

Gee, you think the Roy Williams-Bill Self transition is going to be a storyline this week?

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