Memoirs of Day 1 of the NCAA Tourney

What had me driving three hours to the outskirts of Michigan during my spring break?

The answer: To meet my brother Frank (also an eSports columnist) to watch the first day of the men's NCAA Tournament at his apartment.

After an arduous drive, and smelling countless skunks, I arrived in the small town of Mason, Michigan. Frank and his former college roommate, Radlie, greeted me at the door and we were off to get our pre-game snack of two large Little Caesar's pizzas.

Upon returning, Frank and I recorded random observations of the first day of the NCAA Tournament.

7:53 p.m.: Frank asks "Where is Bill Raftery?" We immediately draw the conclusion that Bill is doing commentary for the war in Iraq. (Imagine the possibilities! "The tomahawk missile... with the kisssssssss!)

7:58 p.m.: Frank and Radlie note the striking resemblance between Kyle Corver and Learch from "The Adams Family." He is a dead ringer! (Although Frank and Radlie don't agree with me, I think he looks more like Ashton Kucher.)

8:00 p.m.; "Korver is one ugly looking dude." Not quite sure who said it, but does it really matter?

8:01 p.m.: A brief pause in the action lead us to turn the channel to WWF Smackdown. Then we imagine having Macho Man and Hulk Hogan on the front lines in Iraq. Macho will be in his USA bandana saying, "Snap into Saddam!" And the Hulkster will almost be beaten with a sleeper hold until he mysteriously gains the energy to give Saddam the big boot, followed by the infamous leg drop.

8:05p.m.: How many TV timeouts could there possibly be in this game? (The TV timeouts would later help us stumble upon "Teen Wolf" on CBS... so it wasn't all bad.)

8:09p.m.: Friday's game schedule is shown on TV leading all of us to ask if Brian Cardinal still played for Purdue. Frank exclaimed that he does and that his elbow pad is now one inch thicker.

8:11p.m.: Creighton and CMU have officially set the record for most stoppages in one game.

8:15p.m.: "R. Kelly is a cheerleader for CMU?" -- Frank on seeing a R. Kelly look alike in CMU's cheerleading squad... Radlie quips that he thought he would be at the high school.

8:17 p.m.: Yet another TV timeout takes us to "SNL" on Comedy Central. Will Ferrel was playing a rock musician and it only proves my theory that Ferrel is the funniest man on the planet. (Theory also proven in "Old School.")

8:19 p.m.: D. Brown of Illinois is sporting the Predator look tonight. I wonder if he was seeing in reds and greens? An opposing point guard could just cover himself in mud and he could run right by him!

8:21 p.m.: I swear the tall guy on Illinois is Chris Collinsworth's illegitimate son!

8:24 p.m.: The announcers make stupid comments... lead us to turn to "Teen Wolf." (The worst part of this is that Teen Wolf was probably the best basketball action we had seen that night.) Not to go off on a random tangent or anything, but Teen Wolf is by far one of the greatest sports related werewolf movies to date! Who could forget such memorable quotes as, "There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese." (And the winner for Best Dance Sequence -- "Teen Wolf.")

8:27 p.m.: Somehow Mark Madsen's 1999 Tournament shenanigans were brought up. This only led us to attempt to do his famous NBA Finals dance! Every time something good happened on the games one of us would burst into dance. I have to say that we are pretty good, and he is really goofy! (Thank you for hours of entertainment Mark!)

During this time Frank's girlfriend calls, seriously impeding on glorious sports action. Needless to say, I took a break from writing.

And we finally return, 9:34 p.m.: "We all sigh "Throoowwwwwwww iiiiiitttttt dowwwwnnnnn big fella." To the poor schmuck who missed that lay-up for Wisc-Mil. Where is Bill Walton when you need him?

9:36 p.m.: Yet another break is taken, but this time to watch the "Elimidate." Has there ever been a worse show on television? When my son grabs his dates nipple at his prom dinner then I will know who to blame.

9:45 p.m.: I see Brian Gumble is filling in nicely in his fat sports anchor roll.

9:50 p.m.: Just thirty minutes before the Flyers play! (Note that I made my brother wear a Univ. of Dayton shirt... not that it helped.)

10:20 p.m.: I see that UD is down by 19, leading me to throw a my notebook down in disgust. (This brings me to a major problem with the NCAA tournament. What is the deal with having us play in Spokane? I am sure all of our fans are going to be willing to drive over a thousand miles to watch the game. So much for helping the higher seeds out with a "homecourt" advantage.)

10:36 p.m.: Damn the sub-regionals!

Incensed by the fact that the Michigan CBS station didn't play UD's game, I threw the notebook yet again. This time for good.