Tag: basketball

Magical Madness

Nick Momrik1 Comment

Last night #2 North Carolina beat top ranked Illinois 75-70 in the NCAA Championship game. UNC led by 13 at half and was up by as much as 15 in the 2nd half, but Illinois fought back to make for an exciting finish to the best March Madness in history.

Words can’t even describe how special it was watching college kids battle on the basketball court for the past three weeks. There’s nothing in sports quite like it. Every kid that plays basketball dreams about cutting down the nets someday. Very few will ever get the opportunity to make those dreams a reality. Each year in March we get to watch how much it really means to these kids. They aren’t playing for money or fame. They’re playing with heart, emotion, and lifelong goals as their motivation.

I won’t even go into it anymore than I have, because you either understand what I’m saying or you don’t. It really is a joy to watch.

Round 1

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With the first round of the 2005 NCAA tournament completed, I couldn’t have asked for better games. I knew it was going to be a great year for March Madness, but didn’t know it was going to be so special. I won’t go into too much detail because anyone who cares would be watching the action anyways, but here are a few highlights:

  • Coach K of Duke tied Dean Smith for the most coaching wins in the history of the NCAA tournament with 65.
  • North Carolina was the only #1 seed to completely control their first round game over a #16. Every other #1 looked to be in trouble for a good portion of the game. I’ve never seen this before. Usually the #1 vs. #16 match-ups are 20-30 point blowouts.
  • No team scored 100 points.
  • Upset specials included:
    • #14 Bucknell over #3 Kansas
    • #13 Vermont over #4 Syracuse
    • #12 Wisconsin-Milwaukee over #5 Alabama
    • #11 UAB over #6 LSU
    • #10 NC State over #7 Charlotte
    • #9 Mississippi State over #8 Stanford
    • #9 Nevada over #8 Texas
    • #9 Iowa State over #8 Minnesota
  • Many other teams came back from 15+ point deficits to make the end of their game interesting.

College basketball is a true joy for me to watch. The power of confidence really shows during the games and this year, no team is safe from an upset. College athletes don’t get paid to play, so they are on the court playing for the love of the game. Just watch the emotions at the end of a game when the senior players from the losing team realize they’ve just participated in their final game.

My brackets are doing all right. In my main bracket I successfully picked 5 of the 8 upsets above and I swear that I wanted to pick Vermont over Syracuse, but just couldn’t do it. Now I wish I had. The problem with my brackets is that I chose too many upsets. Next year I’ll have to remember that about 2 upsets per region happen in the first round. I’m looking forward to the rest of the tournament.

Blue March

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My favorite college basketball team, the Duke Blue Devils, won the ACC tournament today for the 6th time in the last 7 years (lost the title game in OT last year). What’s remarkable about the win is that they didn’t make a field goal for the final 11 minutes of the game, until Sheldon Williams […]

Super Bowl Weekend

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My Super Bowl weekend couldn’t have started out any worse. On the ride up to Rogers City I hit a porcupine and it cracked up my front bumper. I’m going to try to get it fixed without replacing it. I talked to one of the body shops back home and they said they would be able to take off the bumper, grind it down, and glue it. Roughly $300-$400 to have that done. He also said probably over $600 to just replace it. Our deductible is $500, so I really like the $300 range a lot more. If it was my car, I just rig it up with some brackets underneath or something, but I have to turn in the lease in less than two months. Great timing!

My Dad got me all excited about the new vehicle again. He told me that the dealer who is looking for my ride found one exactly like I wanted, but it was $1000 more than I wanted to pay. He said there is a lot of time and if he gets one with a little more mileage it shouldn’t be a problem (this one had 24,000). You’re probably wondering what I’m getting right? It’s going to be a 2003 GMC Envoy SLT 4×4 with carbon metallic as the color. Carbon metallic is a really dark gray and looks sweet on these vehicles. It’s really going to be a nice ride. I can’t wait!

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Pistons, Engines, Tires, And A Pink Shirt

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I received a call from my buddy Jeff on Friday night asking if I’d be interested in a couple of Pistons tickets for Saturday night’s game. Jeff’s friend is a season ticket holder and couldn’t get rid of his seats for the game against the Bulls. I had plans to head down to Detroit on Sunday morning for the North American International Auto Show with Mo anyways, so we bought the tickets. I called my friend Lindsay and lined up a place to crash for the night.

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