03.29.21 Let's Dance

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia in the 1980's - during the Ralph Sampson era - I was a four year season ticket holder for basketball.  Those were great teams, and they won a lot of games...but never a national championship.

In 2018, UVa went into the NCAA Tournament as the overall #1 seed...only to be knocked out in the first round by UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County). They made history...but not in a good way.  That team was the only #1 ever taken out in the first round by a #16 seed.  It was awful.

In 2019, the Hoos came roaring back - vowing redemption - and earning it by winning it all against Texas Tech in overtime!

Last year, like everything else, the NCAA Tournament was cancelled, but this year it's back...and my beloved Hoos were the #4 seed in West Region (even though the entire tournament is being played in Indianapolis).  

After winning the conference championship for the regular season, and a buzzer beater in the first round of the ACC tournament...it looked like they might be cancelled by Covid this year, too...but they made it to the big dance.

However, there's a reason fans refer to them as the heart attack Hoos - Coach Bennett and his players love to keep it interesting until the last seconds tick off the clock - and this year, that meant not making it beyond the first round.  Neither did the University of Texas (where I earned my graduate degree) or many of the other top seeds.  

The first weekend of play was upset central...and by the time the slots were filled for the Sweet Sixteen, there was not a single perfect interactive bracket left!

Even with my alma maters out of the running, I still had a couple teams to pull for...

The University of Houston, which has had great teams since the 60s! My Dad taught physics there in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and was in the arena when Elvin Hayes (the Big E) and the Cougars matched up against Lew Alcindor (most of you know him as Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and UCLA in first ever March Madness game, also called "the game of the century".  Living in Texas for most of my life, including in Houston when my Dad taught there, the Cougs are a sentimental favorite.

The University of Maryland, which was part of the (original) ACC and a huge UVa rival in the 1980s when I was in school.  Like Guy Lewis of Houston, the Terps also had a rough around the edges coach named Lefty Driesell.  They also had an incredible player named Len Bias, who had he not overdosed in the summer of 1985, would have gone on to greatness at the level of his ACC opponent, Michael Jordan.  In addition to seeing Maryland play a lot of basketball during my high school and college years, three of my children have degrees from UMD.

Villanova, because their chaplain is the brother of a dear friend.  Whenever we get together we always talk about family, education policy and NCAA basketball. 

Photo: NCAA Sports, 2019 Champs

Neither Maryland or Villanova - along with several other higher seeded teams - made it through the weekend, but Houston did! 

I'm going to keep watching it all...until the streamers and confetti drop and CBS plays the last note of One Shining Moment...

...grateful for the little bit of normal that comes from watching three weekends of great, if heartbreaking, college basketball.

Until next time.