First Round Observations

As it is just about every year, I had a mediocre first round. I got 21 out of 32 correct. The ones that hurt were the late ones Friday night--Florida State and Wake Forest. I had both going to the Sweet Sixteen. The other Sweet 16 I lost was WVU. So, 13 still alive heading into the second round.

I was pleasantly surprised with the Arizona team that showed up last night. You never know what kind of team is going to show up. Against Utah it was the team that could make it to the Final Four. Can they do that for five more games? Doubt it, but you never know with Arizona. They've got Cleveland State in the 2nd round and then perhaps a matchup with Louisville in the sweet 16

Penn State and Davidson are still alive in the battle for the 66th best team in the country. It's nice they have it though. PSU made it to the NIT final four the one year I was there and I took the offer for $10 for a charter bus to the NIT & back, the NIT double header, and a t-shirt. Not bad for $10. We got there early and even had a chance to roam around NYC for an hour or so. I tried pizza slices at three different pizza places (surprise, surprise)

TRAINING
I'm still in my "off-season" as I don't get as much time to train during track season while I coach the jumpers. But, my ankle's just coming back to 95% anyway, so it's not like I could've done much lately anyway. Last week, I ran 30 min with Beth on Friday, swam about 1000yds on Saturday, and aqua-joggged 90 min on Sunday. This week I ran 25 min on Tue picking up my car after practice (beautiful day!) ran again 30 min with Beth on Friday and ran 30 min with Beth on her brick today. Tomorrow we have a 85 min run planned.

HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS UPDATE
Like it showed in the last post, the girls won the state championship. I didn't realize this but Cardinal O'Hara had all 5 starters going to Division 1 colleges (Vanderbilt, Maryland, LaSalle, Monmouth, & LaFayette). That's impressive but also shows how the catholic schools recruit (even though it's not obvious illegal recruiting). Our girls just didn't back down and took it right to them and had the lead for most of the first half and then pulled away when O'Hara's 6-4 Vandy recruit went down in a heap and twisted her ankle. She tried to get back in, but just couldn't put weight on her foot (I've been there!). The exciting part is that there was just one senior in the top 10 in the rotation. Look out for next year!

Our boys lost in the State semifinals, so it was a great year for both teams. They had a lot of underclassmen starters, so they'll be back next year, too.

In track, we had a beautiful day around 70 degrees for our first meet on Wednesday. It was a little windy and the jumpers were jumping right into it, so that was a bummer. Despite this, a lot of the jumpers picked up around distances/heights they left off at last year. That's exciting! Beth always wants to know how the 800, 1600, 3200 go and I can't ever help since I'm in my own jumping world. I see the runners going around the track but half the time I can't even keep track of what event is even on the track!!!!

This week, we've got an away scrimmage on Thursday and then the first invitational on Saturday. It should be fun.

We'll leave you with a picture of Roxy the Dog. In this picture, she's doing her impression of a duck/goose/flamingo where her head is wrapped back around on her body. What a goofball!!



Okay, back to watching the NCAA tourney!