Lexical Light

Watching & Bloggin Basketball

I've been watching basketball and updating my 64mascots blog. Fascinating, sooooo thought provoking. Another week or so until disk space in my brain is freed up. 

March Madness, Baby!

I LOVE MARCH! (Cue Kurtis Blow.)  A fabulous convergence of sport, weather and no big events*.  

If you've seen Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, you have an idea of what my family goes through on a much lesser scale. My kids would appreciate any relief from the madness. Let me know if you're game. ; )

*My mom's birthday is in March, but it's not a party every year like the kiddos.

My Newest Site: DontExpandTheTournament.com

Oops, I did it again.  Just had to make a blog about NCAA tournament expansion. Don't Expand the Tournament.com is what happens when March Madness meets Digital Dementia. Because I don't have anything else to do.

Congrats to the NCAA Basketball Champions

In the men's tourney, Florida won it's 2nd consecutive championship, which hasn't been done since Duke in the 1990's.

Here are a few other noteworthy tidbits about this unique team and it's win:

*last spring the Oh-Fours (the 4 starting juniors: Brewer, Green, Horford, and Noah) opted for a chance at a repeat instead of NBA careers.

*Estimated cost of that decision - $6 million, the combined estimated NBA salaries of Brewer, Horford, and Noah. HT: SI Tourney Blog

*Florida is the first program to hold the National Title in football and basketball at the same time.

Congratulations, Gators.

In the womens' tourney, Tennesse won again. It's their 7th title, the last one being 9 years ago.  Pat Summit is one the NCAA's winningest coach ever - for men or women.

Congratulations, Vols.

(Not that anybody associated with any team involved reads my blog, but I needed to record this for posterity. As much as I enjoy the Tourney, the facts don't stick in my mind. Limited amount of disk space up there. My championship post last year was quite the rabbit trail. This year's is a bit more succinct.)

My First and Last Bracket

Though I'm a long time, major fan of March Madness, this is the first year I filled out a bracket. (Appropriately, I did it through the SI Tourney Blog.) It's also the last year, in the foreseeable future, I'll fill out a bracket. It's more fun rooting for whomever I feel like at the moment without worrying about my bracket.

If I were more of a bracketologist, or had more room in my brain, I'd be more serious about picking a winner. I can easily see me live blogging the tourney several years from now, but for now I just go along for the ride during March. I don't want to subject my dear children to basketball too often during the regular season. As it is, their high levels of exposure to it in March will either make them fans or foes.

Speaking of being a long time fan, hearing UNC's Roy Willams post game reference to the 1982 championship matchup between UNC and G'town took me back to high school when I first became a March Madness fan. (Remember those tiny shorts? I didn't think much about them then, but there has to be a length between those and today's gaucho's/coulottes the guys are wearing.)

In contract to my mindset , here are some site, just for reference, oozing bracketology:

The Bracket Board  - Great tag line, "If a problem comes along, you must bracket."

Bracketology101 - Projections and predictions, been around 5 years.

Hack the Bracket  - "Statistics and analysis to help you pick your bracket."

March Madness, Weekend 2

The Longhorns are already out of the Tourney, so I was at least hoping to get the Final Four picks right. Wrong. A&M lost tonight. I still have Kansas, Oregon, and G'town in. We'll see how the weekend goes.

Though I'm a UT grad and fan, I will root for the Aggies when needed. To paraphrase a caller on a local sports radio station this morning, "I want them to do well, so next year when we beat them, it means something."  Congrats to the Aggies and AC Law IV for their best season in 27 years.

Hook 'em!

March Madness and Dewey

The Dewey Blog is awesome, baby! My eyes almost rolled back in my head with bliss as I read the recent entry on March Madness. Combining my favorite sporting event with the Dewey Decimal system on a blog was almost too much.

I am indeed a geek w/a capital G, capital EEK! Imagine what would happend if I were spending this weekend in the Library Hotel on the 700 floor, though it seems they don't have a room for the sports part of the 700-799 section, Arts & Recreation.

One day I shall vacation there. Perhaps I will even enjoy a March Madness retreat there in 10 or 15 years. 

Madness Update

The kids have been "rescued" by Dad. I have the house to myself. March Madness just isn't the same w/the kiddos hanging around. Of course, they are infinitely more important than basketball games. I can see them telling their kids that Ya-Ya's house is off limits during this weekend. (Unless they are serious about some basketball.)

I'm not going to bother w/updating about the tourney. That's for another website in another year.

Hook' Em!

Let the Madness Begin!!!

My children have been warned. Today at 11 a.m. begins my annual commandeering of the T.V. for the next few days and weekends. It's time for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. My favorite sporting event of the year. Ahhh.

My recent tradition of a group March Madness/Scrapapalooza is on hiatus this year. Instead, it will just be me & the kids. I'll work on various projects while keeping tabs on the game, the kids have chores to do. As usual, I won't just sit and watch the games straight through. I usually scrapbook exclusively, giving my full attention to the games every couple of hours as a set of games ends. The last minute shots, the possible Cinderellas....oh, yeah, baby! This year I'll do a variety of projects, including crayons.

We're going to the Y earlier than usual to squeeze in a workout. During the day I'll be encouraging/prodding the kids to do some cleaning. (I'll do a little to, during commercials.) Then I'll work on my projects.

The kids were told at the beginning of the week that we will have not visitors Thursday and Friday. The house is on lock down. :) They're looking forward to Daddy "rescuing" them tomorrow when he takes off work early.

My blog references to this event:

3/17/06: Shared Beginnings - the Iraq war & my scrapfest share an inaugural year plus my scrappin' parody of the Beverly Hillbillies Theme.

(I'll have to look for others later. Gotta go to the Y. Only 2 hours to go.)

(Didn't make it to the Y. All the late nights have caught up with the kids - they're all zonked out at 9:46 and I'm not one to wake up kids unless I absolutely have to. I'll do some kind of exercise throughout the day. Just saw that their's a break from 4 pm - 6 pm so we'll go to the Y then. The kids may even get to watch some PBS kids then.)

Why Play Sports?

Soccer practice for Fifi & Songbird started this week, so we bought new shoes, balls, bags and water bottles. (This is only our second soccer season, so we don't have a reserve built up.) On the way to soccer practice Fifi says, "I want to play a sport with lots of gear so we can go shopping for lots of gear."  Songbird pipes up, "Like football. Football players wear lots of gear."

It seems it doesn't matter what Fifi shops for as long as she's shopping. Songbird interjects bits of logic here and there to balance things out.