My wife and I went to the Austin/San Antonio area last weekend to spend Easter with her family. Some of the NCAA college basketball tournament games were being held in Austin the same weekend, and we decided to get tickets to the games on Friday night. This round is called the “Sweet Sixteen”, since sixteen teams still remain; four of these teams played in Austin. We saw two games and had a really fun time.

The first game, Michigan State against Duke, was an incredible upset, with Michigan State knocking off Duke. The second game, Utah against Kentucky, was not quite as exciting; Kentucky was definitely the better team and they wore Utah down fairly easily. (The two winners played each other in Austin on Sunday afternoon, Michigan State against Kentucky. We wanted to go to this game, but we thought we had better get back to Dallas. We listened to the entire game while we were driving home, an amazing double-overtime upset that Michigan State won to advance to the Final Four in St. Louis next weekend.)

Year after year, I follow the NCAA college basketball tournament. When I was in high school, I used to follow college basketball all season long — I had a lot more free time back then. Now I’m content to catch up with the whole season at the beginning of March (just before the conference tournaments start), and then follow the tournament all the way through with my former intensity.

The tournament is accurately called “March Madness”, and this year the tournament has had more madness than most. There have been some huge upsets, some amazing comebacks, a few double overtime games, and four- and five-seeds in the Final Four. We’re pulling for Michigan State, the underdog, so that we can say we watched the national champion play in the tournament.

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Current Books

• Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew
• Alvin Maker 3: Prentice Alvin
• The Kalevala

Recent Movies

• Where The Wild Things Are
• Heroes, Volume 4
• Public Enemies
• Away We Go