On The Plate ... 3/18/04 - 3/21/04

The Weekend -- Part 2 of 3

Read Part 1               Read Part 3

Waking up Friday morning wasn't fun. Not at all. And I woke up at 11:15. You'd think 10-plus hours of Z's would do the trick. Nope. Thursday had been a wang-dang-doodle. But once I got out of bed, the juices started flowing. Why? 'Dores vs WMU at 2:30. That's why. The motto for the weekend? 'Dores to the Four. A second slate of first round games called with the 'Dores dab smack in the middle of them. So after wolfing down a breakfast sandwich at MaGerk's, Disco and I rolled into Ryleigh's for another 12-hour bloodbath. And let me tell you, things got friggin' nutty by the night's end. Nutty…

12:15 tips…

Boston College vs Utah My buddy, Charm City Bow Wow (the nickname will be explained later), was already holding down a table when we got to the bar. In that he is a BC alum, he didn't have too many nice things to say about the Utes. He was fired up and rightfully so. First thing out of his mouth - "Check out the big dude for Utah. He's a friggin' mutant." Beautiful. Game on. Actually, the Utes two big guys were mutants. They looked huge. Two giant white dudes lurking the paint. It was kind of eerie. In actuality, they aren't that big, but they looked like giants. I don't think I was awake enough to figure it out. Anyway, I had 2 questions for this game: 1) When did BC get so many guys who look like they just got out of the clink? My answer: I don't know but I love them. And 2) Do you think Rick Majerus would have drawn up a better play than a friggin' shot clock violation with 12 seconds left in the game? My answer: Damn right. The shot clock violation was atrocious.

Memphis vs South Carolina This one never amounted to much. Therefore, my interest was never piqued enough to focus too sharply on the action. Although I did notice that another SEC East team went down, and went down bad. First Florida, followed by the Gamecocks. Did that make me nervous? A bit. But all in all I was pretty calm. I don't have any idea why, but I was. The best part about this game was yelling "Carney, greatest player ever" every time Memphis forward Rodney Carney hit a three. In other words, this game sucked.

Illinois vs Murray State & NC State vs UL-Lafayette I lost interest in these games early in their second halves when both favorites grabbed double-digit leads. I was too focused on the BC game. It was the only good game on. I kept checking the scores waiting for a Racer or Cajun comeback but they never really happened. I wasn't disappointed.

2:30 tips…

Georgia Tech vs Northern Iowa This was the first game in the last 2 days that gripped the entire bar. Everybody had G-Tech going deep in their brackets, yet everybody was backing NIU as they were making their comeback. God, if that kid had made that 3 to tie with a few ticks left, Ryleigh's would have gone ape. It would have been unbelievable. Instead, a collective sigh was let out and more beers were ordered.

Cincinnati vs ETSU If G-Tech vs NIU was the first gripper, then this was easily the second. My boy, Hepatitis, calmly watched his boys from 'Nati throw away a double-digit lead. I kept asking him if he was nervous all through the second half. He kept saying no. At about the one-minute mark he looked over at me and firmly stated, "OK, now I'm f'in nervous." God bless. After Bobbitt made the game winner, we figured that if he hadn't been tagged in the nads last week against DePaul he would have never made the shot. The moral of the story: get hit in the junk in your conference tourney and become a hero in the Big Dance. I don't know if that is a "moral" or not but I'm sticking with it.

Oklahoma State vs Eastern Washington Do you have any idea how many times I heard, "Holy crap, OSU is tied with EWU at halftime?" A lot.

Vanderbilt vs. Western Michigan 2 point underdogs in Vegas. A #6 seed getting 2 points. First slap in the face. Then that red-faced Irish prick Bob Ryan at the Boston Globe said the kids were "too white" to beat WMU. Second slap in the mug. Then everyone on ESPN started chirping about Western Michigan following the Florida loss. Slap numero three. Basically everyone had penciled them in as a "nice 8-8 SEC regular season but you aren't worth crap" team. Well guess what the Stardust, Bob Ryan and ESPN can do? Eat it. First tournament win since 1993. Was I nervous? Oh God yes. No doubt about it. But the kids put it into high gear in the last few minutes and eased any and all worries. Mario Moore was off the heezy. I don't know what that means, but I'm using it for Mario because I know it is damn good. The kid had 6 triples. Matt Freije did yeoman's work. That's why he is First Team All-SEC. He hit the glass and made defensive plays when he knew it wasn't his night. The Broncos contained him, and he still made plays. Lots of high fives went around Ryleigh's after the W. Lots. I was rocking my Vanderbilt football jersey circa '96, Disco was rocking the ugliest Vanderbilt shirt I've ever laid eyes on, and the random kid who walked into the bar with a Vanderbilt hat on was our new best friend. It was gorgeous. Did I make 432 phone calls after we won? Yes, I did. And did it with a huge smile on my face. The 'Dores actually won a tournament game. Awesome.

7:30 tips…

Mississippi State vs Monmouth Yawn. And yes I was still numb from the Vandy win.

Wisconsin vs Richmond This is where things started getting a bit nutty. The bar started to get crowded because people were coming in to eat, booze and watch the games. In other words, maneuvering to a different TV became kind of tough without standing in someone's way. It was a pain in the ass. But whatever, I dealt. The problem was that I didn't catch much of this game because a Richmond contingent cruised into the bar and was looking to eat. And they wanted the big flat screen by their tables to have the Richmond game. No problems. God bless 'em. My only problem was that I never made a significant move over to that part of the bar until after Wisconsin had made their big run late. I kept watching the score, kept seeing that it was close and was planning on jumping to the Wiscy/Richmond section around the 5 minute mark. Anyway, by the time I got to watch the game it wasn't as close as it had been earlier. Does this make any sense? It might not. You'll understand why when I get to what happened regarding the following two games which happened to be on at the same time as Wiscy/Richmond. And yes I was still numb from the Vandy win.

Providence vs Pacific & Kentucky vs FAMU These games get lumped together for a reason. But before I get to the reason, some quick hoop thoughts on the games. Providence looked bad. Plain and simple. Bad. Maybe Pacific made them look bad. Either way, I wasn't happy to see the first Big East loss. FAMU might beat any team in the tournament in a street ball game. Actually, screw "might." They would, and I'd bet money on it. The Rattlers are my new favorite team ever. Is there a school named Atlantic? If so, why isn't the "Battle of the Ocean" a mandatory sporting event? OK, that's really all I have to say about those games. UK won. No surprise. Providence lost again. No surprise. I had said that this one made me nervous. On to the story. So a bunch of my friends (12-15 guys and girls) are sitting/standing around a table in front of one of the flat screen TVs. There are three other tables to our right occupied by various people. The TV in front of us had the UK vs FAMU game on. We had no problem with it initially because the game was close until about 8 minutes left. The other TV in our view had just been changed to the Wiscy vs Richmond game. This was a good thing. It was late in the game and closer than the UK vs FAMU game. At this, we asked the waitress if we could turn off the UK game to put on the Providence vs Pacific game because it was the closest game of all. From where we were sitting we had no view of the Providence TV so guys were getting up and going over to where they could see the game. A pain in the ass. The UK game was a blowout and the Providence game was a good one. So I went up to the bar and asked one of the waitresses for the remote so that I could change the game. Sure. So I change the game. When I did, the table of 4 dudes next to us goes nutty. "What? Turn the f'in UK game back on. Holy blah blah blah!" So I turn the UK game back on thinking that these guys have UK, or even better FAMU, tattoos. I think to myself, "That's legit. They're hardcore." A buddy of mine proceeds to ask these guys why they want to watch a blowout instead of a potential upset. They say they all have huge bets on UK. We say F that and tell them to watch the ticker for the scores. We don't want to miss the end of the Providence game. I mean come on. It's Friday night of the first round of the tounrament and we're supposed to watch a crappy game because these jackasses have a bet on UK. No. At this, a different waitress comes over, yells at me, grabs the remote from me and leaves. So we're stuck with the GD UK game. Not good. I say whatever and walk around the corner with a few guys to watch the only TV with the Providence game on it. No less than 2 minutes later I hear the sound of glasses breaking, turn around and one of the dudes from the pro-UK-bet table is lunging across my friends' table and grabs one of my buddies by the throat. What? Well this "lunger" picked the wrong dude to grab by the throat because my buddy threw him back across the bar as people jumped in to break up the bedlam. Absolutely unbelievable. I asked my buddy, who had just gotten choked, what the hell happened and he said the guy went nuts over the "changing games" idea. Needless to say the guy who did the choking quickly left the bar, followed by his friends who bought about 12-15 people a round of beers and some pitchers. And my buddy, who got choked, got comped by Ryleigh's for the rest of the night. Wild stuff. An unexpected brawl in a non-brawl type place. March Madness. This junk can get to you. God bless.

9:45 tips…

Kansas vs UIC I was on cruise control for the late games. Ryleigh's had gotten silly crowded and moving became an issue. Moving as in walking. It was packed. And there was a friggin' band playing. A band? Yes, a band. It sucked. So I picked a spot and stuck with it and in doing so didn't get to see much of some of the games. This one was one of them. I wasn't worried because there was a group of 4 girls with Jayhawk T-shirts on that yelped after every basket by KU. And they yelped a lot, so I assumed the Jayhawks looked good.

Xavier vs Louisville This one pissed me off for obvious reasons. The Cardinals played like imbeciles down the stretch. Not once did they try to penetrate Xavier's zone. They were content missing 30-footers. It sucked. I think I was noticeably mad about this one. At one point, Hepatitis came up to me and asked if I was OK. Not good. Final Four? Riiiiiight. I've said it since day one. I'm an idiot. And my "UL to the Four" call in January is legitimate proof. I think Pitino may have called up Izzo and they may have met up for a late night session of Russian Roulette.

Pitt vs UCF When the Xavier vs UL game ended, the TV I was watching switched to this game. When I saw the score I thought it was still in the first half. Nope. Just your typical Pitt slugfest with the score in the low 40s with 2 minutes to go. Jesus. Talk about numbing. I was glad I hadn't subjected myself to this one.

UAB vs Washington A perfect nightcap to a wild day. And a perfect ending to the first round. A crazy finish. But my boy Squeaky Johnson and Company came through. And when they did, I had made out OK on some of my general predictions. Conference USA had been "Chevy Tough" through round one going 4-2. And the Pac 10 had won another March puke-eating contest with 'Zona and Washington bowing out in the first round.

All in all I felt pretty good. The 'Dores had won, the Big East was 5-1, the SEC and C-USA were 4-2 and I was still alive. As in breathing. On the downside, Louisville had wet its bed for the final time, the ACC was 6-0, and only four lower seeds had won in the first round - UAB, Pacific, Nevada and Manhattan - without a true buzzer beater. But with that being said, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, beats the first two days of the NCAA Tournament. It's the best. Absolutely the best. And it was only the beginning or more amazing things to come.