Since everyone who watched the games on tv saw them better than I did, this post will be about some "off-the-court" parts of the trip.
1) The NCAA, in an odd money-grubbing effort, added two rows behind the team benches (without risers), took them away from the teams (who are supposed to get the seats behind their bench)... and sold them to the highest bidders. As a result, the folks in them were not normal fans of the teams. Or, in some cases, not normal people. Don't know whether this was visible on tv during the Montana game, but some incredibly obnoxious over-weight women wearing orange snuck into the seats directly behind the SU bench at halftime (after the people who had bought them had left). One of them was literally falling out of both her jeans and her four-sizes-too-small tank top. And she stood up and loudly yelled absurdities at the SU team while shaking all her body parts -- thereby both annoying the SU team and blocking the view of those who had actual SU seats behind her. People who know me, consider me a pretty nice person, but it finally became intolerable... so I loudly shouted to her: "I hope you're proud to be embarrassing both yourself and Syracuse by being a slut on national TV." Amazingly, she stopped her performance. And she was no where around for the the Cal game two nights later. (And everyone near me congratulated me for my uncharacteristic behavior).
2) When we reached 74 points in the Montana game, many SU fans started chanting "Tacos!" I am sure no non-SU fans knew what it meant, but it was funny.
3) While walking to the arena for the Cal game with VA Orange and another friend, we struck up a conversation with some random guys (in SU shirts) walking near us. In response to some random question, I said I was from Connecticut. The guy stopped in his tracks... and said: "Are you cto?" Turned out he is a long time lurker on the board who rarely posts... but he meets a random woman from Connecticut... and decides it was me. In the middle of San Jose! Anyhow, I thought it was funny. And I hope he reads this.
4) SU shared a hotel (hotels are assigned by the NCAA) with St. Louis. The St Louis fans, band members, support staff, etc... were all really nice people. I felt badly that they lost to Oregon.
5) I am sure this has been commented on all weekend (I was not able to read the board), but it was really absurd that a four-seed was sent 3000 miles to play what was essentially a home game for a 12-seed (Cal). We thought it would be pretty raucous, but the Cal fans were amazingly quiet until the Golden Bears made their run in the final few minutes. Then they became seriously LOUD. Given what has happened to the West bracket, maybe we just should have been placed out there for the entire tourney. What an odd regional that is going to be.
6) San Jose was a much better place than I thought it would be. A pleasant city, good restaurants and easy driving distance to a lot of great places. During the day on Thursday and Friday, VA Orange and I went to the 17-mile drive, Carmel, Monterey and Pebble Beach. I actually got sunburned while having lunch overlooking the 18th green at Pebble Beach. After having seen nothing but cold and snow for nearly six months, the sunburn felt good.
7) After Florida Gulf Coast beat Georgetown, I was chatting with Adrian Autry. He said he was not the least bit surprised by their success When he was an assistant at Virginia Tech, he said FGCU recruited against Virginia Tech for a lot of players... including their current stars.
8) Silly story of the weekend. On Saturday afternoon, while Adrian and I were chatting about Florida Gulf Coast in the hotel lobby, Tim O'Toole comes up to us and says: "I have to buy a shirt for tonight. Where can I buy a shirt?" (Turns out Tim has been on the road since before the Big East tourney and had literally run out of shirts). Adrian says there's a Nordstrom's in a mall down the road, so the three of us get in my rental car and drive there. We go into the men's department, Tim picks up the first white shirt he sees and says he will buy it. Adrian suggests it might be too small, and I say "Aren't you going to try it on?" Tim shakes his head and says no. We convince him to try it on. Of course, it was too small, so he buys a larger one. Meanwhile, not knowing what else to do in the men's department, I find a spiffy subtle orange-striped tie for Tim. I hope it was visible on tv. It is really a great tie. (My contribution to the win).
9) Second silly story of the weekend. Getting off the plane at JFK tonight, I run into my next door neighbor -- who was on the same plane (unknown to each other). We both had car-service cars there. So we wind up riding from the same place... to the same place... in two separate cars ... paying two separate full-fares. Hey, if that was the worst thing that happened all weekend... it was a pretty good weekend.
10) ON TO DC!
