Nickthenerd

I was lucky enough to be drawn for the second round of tickets..apparently a lot of people bailed for one reason or another and had to release their tickets.  The seats I picked up were at the very top row of a corner section.  The benefit to these seats are that they were located on the end of the row, nearest the Men’s room and very close to a concession stand.  The sight line was not bad at all either…obviously anywhere on the side would of been better, but I can’t complain too much.  I liked where we sat, if for nothing else, the convenience.

As per usual, the Sprint Center gets an epic fail for their security issues.  They just cannot get people in the door fast enough.  Blame the people all you want for waiting so long to enter but let’s be honest, a majority of these folks had not been in the Sprint Center and probably had not heard of all the issues they have getting people in on time.  Just open more doors people!  Every single time I go there, ten minutes till the game starts the doors swing open and the security goes into panic mode.  Why can’t we do this 20 minutes earlier?  Anyways, I digress.  That is my only consistent complaint about the Sprint Center and the rest of the post will be shown in a positive light.

The first game of the tournament started March 19th at 11:30 A.M.  Since I’ve been down to the Sprint Center for other events, I was fortunate enough to know where to park and to not bother driving around the mess of people looking for spots.  11th Street parking is my friend and it is only a short 4-5 diagonal blocks from the Center.   I ended up taking the day off from work and I had PLANNED to sleep in till about 10 A.M.  This was not the case, however.  I was able to snag two tickets so I invited my pops, since he is a big OU fan and I was fairly certain that OU would play here in KC.

My dad shows up, beating on the door, claiming to have called my cell three or four times…I never heard any of them.  I was conked out!  I stayed up way too late thinking I was going to get to sleep until 10 A.M. or so.  Eventually I was woken to a constant little pip squeak dog.  He was downstairs in the window going crazy like he always is doing for strangers in his small view out into the real world.  At first I looked out the window and didn’t see any extra cars, so I just assumed it was someone walking by but right as I am about to hop back into bed, I hear a pounding on my door.  I check the window again…pops was parked on the road camoflaged by my tree who has seen better days.  I look at the clock…it’s like 830….LOL

What the hell?! I answer the door and he is ready to go to the casino.  Crazy old man…he wins, I lose…it is generally the same old story.  We head back to my house at 1030 and I get a quick shower/change in and off we go to the fun.

We made it inside right about the time that Memphis tipped off while I was chowing down on some McD’s on the walk to the glass dome.  Here is a list of the times for all of the games that took place.  I’m not going to try and attempt and recall everything that happened but I do remember a few key things.

1) Clemson guy was ejected for throwing an elbow into/under the chin of some Michigan guy.

2) Morgan State’s band was frickin’ awesome.  They totally blew away everyone else that played.  Their trumpets were bad-asses going way, way high and loud.

3) Some Morgan State guy flipped Griffin, getting an immediate ejection.  It was quite a site to even seen Griffin lifted off the ground like that…the whole crowd was stunned for a second.

4) Once that guy was ejected, the entire game mood went from ‘oh little brother Morgan State’ to ‘You suck and die, Morgan State’ from most of the crowd.  Hell even the Morgan State band was shunned once the guy was ejected.  People were almost ready to give them a standing ovation five minutes earlier, every time they played.

5) In between games we (pops and I, four other guys) decided to for-go P&L and find some place where we could actually get a drink in short order.  We found a nice little hole in the wall called, Dolcé on Grand.  We downed five beers in about an hour, had some tacos, and headed back to the big dance.  I love finding little hole in the wall drinking places.  They rock.

On Friday–

6) Memphis pwns Maryland and it wasn’t even close. One of Maryland’s guards earlier in the week whined to the media about how Memphis plays in a terrible conference and if they played in the ACC that they wouldn’t be so good.  So knowing this, toward the end of the game when it was getting out of hand, Memphis fans started cheering, “ACC! ACC! ACC!” Calipari (Memphis Coach) made some motions to quiet down the crowd.  Then Maryland fans responded with “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” in that oh-so-aggravating and annoying chant.  This stopped after a couple seconds and was pretty mild in relation to the “ACC” chant.  I think the reason it stopped was because either a) they didn’t know how to do it or b) forgot what the next word was after stretching out the word, Rock.  A minute later, they broke out ‘let’s go jayhawks’ – something that might be more their speed.  Of course, all the homer Jayhawk fans jumped in on that one for a couple minutes until they were bored.

7) Speaking of homer KU fans….almost every KU fan that was there was wearing a national championship shirt from last year.  Talk about a kick to the nuts.  Stay classy, KU fans.

Something I forgot to mention earlier..on almost every timeout or half time of Thursday’s games was brought to you by KU or Mizzou.  I can’t believe how many times they had to rub it into Memphis fans by showing the national title game highlights or from some other KU or Moo highlight package.  /puke   ed:[hey it's my blog, if you don't like it, too bad ]

9) Oklahoma did not have a real easy time with Michigan.  It wasn’t till about five minutes left in the game where I felt OU actually had control of the game.

10) Griffin is a man beast.  God help them if someone actually beats the hell out of him and knocks him unconscious though.  OU struggled at times to get anything going on the outside.  These two days were a showcase of why Griffin is getting player of the year award and why they have done so well this season.  Can they make it all the way?  I doubt it, but you never know…that is what makes March Madness so great!  [personally, I can't wait for Griffin to go pro ]

I have included pics and video (scroll to the bottom of the blog) of the contests from Saturday’s games only.  Unfortunately the camera I had also ran out of juice shortly after half time of the OU game, so not many pics of the later part of that game.   It was a great time and would take me forever to try and put everything in this post so I’ll just say this….I’d do it again, given the chance.  Hopefully the Cats are playing here though.    Questions/Comments?

Thursday’s games in Kansas City

•Memphis (31-3) vs. Cal State Northridge (17-13), 11:25 a.m.

•California (22-10) vs. Maryland (20-13), about 1:55 p.m.

•Clemson (23-8) vs. Michigan (20-13), 6:10 p.m.

•Oklahoma (27-5) vs. Morgan State (23-11), about 8:40 p.m.

Saturday’s games in Kansas City

•Memphis vs. Maryland, 2:20 p.m.

•Oklahoma vs. Michigan,  4:50 p.m.

Videos
OU/Michigan tipoff

B. Griffin shoots a freethrow/misses and makes a dumb foul

A view of the Sprint Center from my seats

nickthenerd Fun Family, Sports