staying up past my bedtime.

I was thinking that I shouldn't write a completely basketball-related entry in the chances that such an essay would isolate the readers who were not fans of college hoops.

And then I thought, who cares about those people?

For those of you who are not keeping up, the NCAA tournament finals are tomorrow night, and it's Georgia Tech and UCONN. Tomorrow night is a big night. When I was a kid, it was the only school night where I was allowed to stay up past my bedtime, a privilege I took even when teams I did not care anything about were playing.

But this time, I'm rooting for the ramblin' wreck (that's Georgia Tech, guys, c'mon, let's keep up here), even though I have UCONN in the CS department pool. I'm only gambling for bragging rights, so fear not. Besides, our pool is a little different. You get to pick one team from each seed, meaning you get a #1, a #2, a #3, etc. And you get a point for every round 1 game one of your teams wins, 2 points for every round 2 game, and so on. I actually did quite well, especially considering it was my first year, but there's no way I can win now because the people with more points than me also have UCONN or in some cases, UCONN and Tech. So I can go ahead and root for the ACC team.

That's been one rough part of having teams to pull for for your own personal gain. You can't pull for all the underdogs that way. For instance, in the UAB/Kansas game, I had Kansas as one of my teams. But really, who can root against a #9 team that late in the dance? You gotta pull for the little guys, it's a rule.

The tournament as a whole has not been disappointing, with lots of the classic surprises that make March Madness the exciting thing it is. There have been the last second wins (and conversely, last second losses), big upsets, players that never get to play rising to the occasion, and injuries. Throw in a couple of muskets and it's starting to sound like a Civil War movie.

I was eating with my parents one evening last weekend, and Mama said it would be great if one year we could have an all-ACC final four. We all sat back, stared into space and thought about the great possibility. Then I said that while we were wishing for things, we might as well go for an all-North Carolina Final Four, with Duke, UNC, State, and Wake Forest. And that was truly a wonderful thought. Maybe someday.

So anyway, don't go calling me tomorrow evening, or you will be on the talkative end of a very one-sided conversation, if I pick up the phone at all. After all, I've got a date with a ramblin' wreck from Georgia Tech (and a helluva engineer)!*


*Note that I am using a form of an expletive, but that this particular one is permissable according to my mother, as it is part of an ACC team fight song.