why I don't like Duke...(but I still love Amanda)

I played basketball in high school. I wasn't great, but I was on a great team and I developed a huge love for the game. It was the one sport my mom would watch with me on TV (I was on my own with football. Nobody in my house watched but me and my bro...) March Madness was/is always a favorite time of the year...not only because it happens during THE MONTH OF MEL but because it was a bonding time for my me and my momma.

The year was 1992 and Christian Laettner was playing for Duke in the finals against Kentucky. It was a heated game. A close game. A very physical game...

I watched Duke a lot during the season. I never liked Laettner, I had seen some very poor sportsman-like behavior over the year--and I thought Coach K (who I'd always admired) should've been doing more to unswell Laettner's head and his attitude. But (as is with a lot of programs) if the player is great, then he can often get by with being an ugly sport.

Anyway, back to the finals. Laettner stomps on a Kentucky player that fell. It wasn't a rib-breaking stomp...it was more of a tap, BUT it was an intentional move that showed Laettner's true colors. Initially, Laettner denied it was an intentional move, but later he admitted he was getting Timberlake back for pushing him earlier in the game.



Now, I could've lived with the childish behavior if he had been dealt with properly. (he got a Technical foul in the game, as he should have, but honestly, Coach K should have punished him for being such a tool. He didn't.) And that's when I lost respect for Coach K and in the end, the entire Duke athletic program.

You wanna know why I think Laettner was never punished for his actions? Because in the last seconds of the game, he scored the winning shot. And we all know that nothing is more important than winning, right?



So yeah, I hate Duke. (but I still love all my friends who love them...)

March Madness

If you've been reading this blog since the start (March 2008), then you know that I'm a diehard duke basketball fan and that March is my favorite month of the year. I live and breathe basketball at this time of year, and for a good reason.

The Big Dance!

Bosses, get prepared for a slowdown in the office, because the Men's NCAA Tournament begins today. My work finally wised up and blocked access to the streaming video of the games last year.

It's traditional to fill out brackets and pick the winners of each of the games, all the way up to the championship game. Even our nation's most famous basketball fan, President Barack Obama (whose brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, is the head coach at Oregon State) has released his bracket. Despite a personal assistant (Reggie Love) who played at Duke, the President has failed to choose my boys as a Final Four team again, even though they're a 1 seed.

Obama's picks for the Final four are Kentucky, Kansas, Kansas State, and Villanova. But if his education secretary had his way, his pick to win it all -- Kentucky -- wouldn't even be there. (As a Duke fan, that cracks me up.)

Arne Duncan has made headlines for calling for the the NCAA to ban post-season play for all schools that fail to graduate at least 40% of their student athletes. Under his plan, 12 teams with poor four-year average graduation rates would miss this year’s men’s basketball tournament:

Baylor University (36 percent)
Clemson University (37 percent)
Georgia Institute of Technology (38 percent)
New Mexico State University (36 percent)
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (29 percent)
University of California at Berkeley (20 percent)
University of Kentucky (31 percent)
University of Louisville (38 percent)
University of Maryland at College Park (8 percent)
University of Missouri at Columbia (36 percent)
University of Tennessee at Knoxville (30 percent)
University of Washington (29 percent)

As a girl who bleeds Duke Blue, the idea of Kentucky or Maryland not making it because of piss-poor graduation rates makes me chuckle. (We have long-standing rivalries with both those teams...not as long as our rivalry with UNC, but let's just say that I told my baby that she can go wherever she wants for college, as long as it's not UNC, UCONN, Kentucky, or Maryland.)

I'm proud to point out that Duke's four-year graduation rate is 97%. :) Go Devils!

Obviously Arne Duncan has no power to force the NCAA to adopt it, but it's clear he wants to put more of an emphasis on the "student" part of "student-athlete."

So what do you think of this plan? Who are your rooting for in the tourney? Have you finished your bracket yet?

(I should point out that my 3-month-old has even picked her own bracket. I read the names of the matchups out loud to her and whichever team she smiled or giggled at -- or at least didn't cry at -- was the one she chose to win that game.)

Spring Breakin' out...

I've never had the fortune of going on what you'd consider a "true spring break" in the wild and crazy sense. Definitely not in the Girls Gone Wild sense, that's for sure. (But that's a good thing.)

I don't think I'd really want to, either. Not my style. I may be liberal politically, but my everyday sense is actually quite conservative and reserved. (Those stories you've heard are all lies, I tell you! Lies!)

Sure, I used to enjoy Myrtle Week in college (the week after exams, where everyone at my school would drive down to Myrtle Beach for some fun in the sun), but in a much quieter way than most of my sorority sisters. We'd party on my b-day (Cinco de Mayo), but then I'd spend the rest of the trip just laying out and relaxing instead of hitting on random guys.

In college, I generally went back to NJ to visit my parents over Spring Break. Once I went to some first-round NCAA games, however.

That's what Spring Break always meant for me in college. One thing, and one thing only...basketball.

If you've read my previous post, then you probably think I'm a prissy little girly girl. And in many ways, I kinda am. And I totally don't think my college hoops obsession makes me any less girly. I just think it's normal.

See, my parents met on the steps of the graduate student dorm at Duke. My dad went there for undergrad, too, as did his dad before him. So I was reared on a steady diet of Duke basketball from about the time I could string together the sentence "Go Devils!"

There was no question where I wanted to go for college, especially with the fabulous back-to-back National Championships that occured when I was in junior high and high school.

So it was normal for me to spend Spring Break following the team, either on TV or in person.

On Saturday night we'll have the first ever Final Four with all #1 seeds, as UCLA and Memphis meet at 6 pm EST and Kansas and UNC afterwards. As cool as it is to see this historic meeting, I'm feeling rather bittersweet that Duke isn't among them.

Clearly I have to root for Memphis to beat UCLA. Why? Well, UCLA leads the nation in number of NCAA Tourney wins, and I want them to slow down so Coach K may eventually get a chance to catch up. And clearly I have to root for Kansas over UNC, because as a Duke grad, it's my solemn duty. I'm sworn to cheer against our bitter rivals to the end.

Unless Duke had made it to the Final Four this year, in which case I would root for UNC over Kansas, because I'd love for Duke and UNC to face off in the finals. Coolest. Game. Ever.

Speaking of UNC, I got married on the same night as the Duke-UNC game a few years back. I know, I know. Not too smart of me, and I always swore I'd never schedule a wedding in between November and April. But in my defense, the Duke-UNC game never used to be on a Saturday night...it was always Sunday afternoon! But ESPN decided Sat nite would be a better TV draw, so I had a bunch of pissed off wedding guests. LOL!

There's a fun pic of me and my maid of honor watching the game in the hotel bar. Needless to say, Mr. Brice was not amused...

So what about you? What did you do for Spring Break? Was basketball ever part of the agenda? Do you even care about the NCAA Tourney? LOL!