My mascot can beat your mascot

So I know that you are taking a break from the March Madness to read a few blogs...

It is with a heavy heart that I realize there are those of you reading this who are not aware of what March Madness is... we can still be friends.

For those who are watching basketball on TV and those who enjoy fun trivia here is just a little info about the teams.

30 states are represented this year

TX has the most teams in this year with 7

PA has the second most with 5

CA -4

KY, OH, TN, SC, IN, NY -3

KS, MD, MI, VA, NC, WI, FL, UT, WA, NM-2

NV, OK, IA, GA, MN, VT, WVA, MO and AR had 1

and in case any of you took the time to count all those teams that is just 63. Georgetown is in the District of Columbia.

I love our bracket pickings. We have been doing it for 14 years. We started it the year my mama died to give us a fun distraction in the midst of our grief. John Austin was 8, Kaitlin 10 and Andrew 13. We pick round by round. There are many advantages of this way of picking. The biggest one being you can have a bad day and still not be out of it. Also it involves lots of interaction because you must keep up with the games and keep sending your picks in.

We have a fun group in our picking this year. It is made up of family and friends. We have those that could be on ESPN with all their knowledge and we have those that have no idea what ESPN is. I love all the creative ways our folks have for picking their teams, some pick the higher seed, some by color of the team or who the mascot is, one by the teams that have the most letters of his name in them, and alphabetical is always popular.

John has a friend, Kevin, and in Kevin's bracket he picked the higher seed unless there were 5 seed points apart and then he picked the team whose mascot could beat the other one in a fight. Now that took some thought!

Just so you know, Andrew won last year, even though he doesn't remember.

How do you pick your teams?

Basketball update 2

We had a point and shoot camera so the action shoots are not the best. We wanted to take Kaitlin's big camera but they were forbidden.

Our seats were in the MS State sections so the cheers were aimed at us. That was fun.

There were more Tigers fans at Alltel than any other. Their school blue is a beautiful color.

This man in the center of this pictures looks like he could work for the Russian Mafia. He never watched the game he always scanned the crowd. Several times during the MS State game a cow bell was rung. Cow Bell ringing is illegal. When you hear it is a closed arena, you know why. This man and several like him were intent on finding it. I was scared they would and what they would do with the culprit. They never did and by the end of the game the man was ringing it over his head trying to encourage MS State. Also I took this picture for Kaitlin so she could see the photographers. Kaitlin has gone to so many sporting events that we have realized she would make a good sports photography because she know enough about the game but doesn't really care.

The young man who is 11 for MS State, wearing the maroon, has a brother who plays for NC. I knew from the paper that his mama was at the NLR game while his dad was at the game in NC supporting his brother.

We saw the coach for Memphis in 1996 in Atlanta when he was the coach for U Mass. His pictures is on the score board.


One picture I wish I did have was of the trainer for MS State. He must of lost power and gotten dressed in the dark. He was wearing a bright pink pair of pants, a powder blue shirt with a white collar and a pink and blue tie. There is even a blub in the sports page today about his outfit.

One thing I enjoyed about the games is I was happy with whoever won. I saw lots of MS State tears. That broke my heart.

I had a great time. I loved being there to feel all that excitment. Andrew wants to find 2 venues next year so that we can see games on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That would be fun.

Basketball 1

Here we are at the first, Second Round game at Alltel arena in NLR. We were 14 rows from the court. We saw Texas and Miami. There were a contingent of Texas fans and a very few Miami. But Miami got most of it's cheers from the anti-Texas fans in the place. Every time they played The Eyes of Texas are Upon Me, the Hogs fans started calling the Hogs. At first I was sad they would do that until Carl reminded me that if I heard the alabama fight song I would sing the AUBURN fight song louder. All four schools brought their pep band. They all had different kinds of cheer squads. Some just cheerleaders, some a mix of cheerleaders and pom squads and one team just had 3 cheerleaders and lots of dancers.