Duke Wins (barely), Baylor Loses (badly), Planet continues spinning unimpressed

it’s that time of the year again, when a young man’s fancy turns to basketball.i bought tickets to the first round games in D.C. for my brother’s birthday gift last year, so he came down for the games this weekend. out of shear luck, his favorite team (duke) got seeded into the d.c. bracket, so he is in 27th heaven (which also means that i can give him crappy presents for the next couple of years with impunity.) it also turns out that the lady sparkler’s alma mater (baylor) is playing in the d.c. part of the tourney, too … so everyone has someone to root for but me.

my alma mater (william & mary) has not appeared in the ncaa tourney yet despite 80 years of trying, and my favorite team (maryland) just crashed out of the tourney-wannabe (N.I.T.) this afternoon. in a purely sociological experiment, i decided early on to root for the teams with the best looking cheer/dance squad. i am sad to report that this turned out *not* to be the way to go as my teams went 1 for 4. (although i must say i was *much* less stressed about the games’ outcomes then the rest of my Baylor-, Georgia- and Arizona-rooting friends.)

baylor actually played quite well. they took good shots, and held their own defensively, but the ball simply never bounced their way. their opponent, purdue, were chucking balls at the basket without looking and scoring left and right. not much you can do when you are up against a team having that kind of a day, unfortunately.

duke, on the other hand, nearly screwed the pooch (pardon my french, of course) and ended up just one point shy of losing to the 6th worst team in the tourney. they shot 28% from three-point range, and their regular-season leader in points had just one field goal in 29 minutes. only guard gerald henderson saved duke from the abyss — with 21 points, seven rebounds and five steals.

anyway, in the end … duke won, baylor lost, and evan embarrassed himself by picking the losers better than the winners. all is as it should be.