Almost Without a Dance Partner

Just to make clear, the title is referring to college basketball--nothing about a close encounter for Beth.

Anyway, Sunday's selection show arrives and I figure that Penn State might make it, but Arizona & Davidson were out. Sure enough, somehow Arizona makes it in and continues their consecutive years of making the tourney (although most of the country felt that Arizona was the one team that shouldn't be in). Oh well, Arizona's in and PSU & Davidson were out. I think PSU was a better pick than some of the at large teams, but they were hurt by two things: First, teams like Mississippi St, Temple, USC, and Cleveland St won their conference tourneys, taking away at-large bids. Secondly, they let slip out of their hands TWO chances (at Iowa and in the Big Ten tourney at Purdue) to virtuallly lock their NCAA invite. Both times, they came up short, perhaps showing they didn't deserve to be in.

Regardless, Arizona's in, so I'll be rooting for them even though I thought I would be without a team to cheer on for the first time since I started following college hoops back in 1988 when I was out in Phoenix with my dad visiting my Aunt and we watched Sean Elliot and Arizona lose to Stacey Augmon and Oklahoma in the Final Four (Oklahoma then lost to Danny Manning & Kansas in the final). Truth be told, I have Arizona picked to lose in the first round based on my confidence (or lack thereof) in them.

By the way, if you're interested in joining an NCAA tourney bracket just for bragging rights and not for money, check out my facebook page or email me. I'm not going to put the private login on the blog since it would then no longer be too private. Duh!

HIGH SCHOOL HOOPS
In other basketball news, the girls hoops team just won 59-45 against Cheltenham in the state semi's and are now on to the state finals at the BJC!!!!! The boys are still in it and their semi is Wednesday night.

HIGH SCHOOL TRACK
Our season opener is on Wednesday with an unheard of forecast high of 70?!?!?!? I can't believe it's going to be that nice. We've had some great days of training the last two weeks. Even though it's the first meet, we should see some half-decent performances. I'm excited for a group of jumpers. I've got some new people on the guys side and a core group of girls are now juniors and seniors. This should be fun!

Okay, enough for tonight. More reports on the NCAA tourney, high school hoops & track, Pirates, and the great one-liners from the sermon the last two weeks to follow this weekend.