I'm down here for the tournament, and thought I'd put fingers to keyboard to write out some of my impressions.
First, it is great to see the DBR folks who are here. I just wish our
illustrious leader, Julio, could have made it, but he's got some
conflicts to handle. (For those who haven't heard, President Clinton
has asked Julio to mediate between India and Pakistan.)
I flew in from San Francisco on a red-eye to Houston and an Embraeur jet to Charlotte. Ate some Lexington BBQ for lunch, and found my hotel, only to find the
AC isn't working. Not that you care about that.
The first half of the first game was torture. You could see that these teams earned the privilege of playing on Thursday. How many field goals did Tech have after
12 minutes? Three? It's not like FSU was a great defensive club, either. The second half was a bit more exciting, as FSU could not put Tech away.
As you might imagine, the talk of the day was Kenyon Martin. I think it is a shame, I'd much rather beat a team at its best. Good luck to him with his recovery.
Both Boswell and I wore yellow, to honor Bobby Cremins. He's a good man, but the game has passed him. Strictly speaking, the game itself hasn't, the
business of the college game, with freshmen jumping to the NBA, has. He's earned some time to relax and enjoy life.
Well, as for the Duke game. It looked close for about 8 minutes, but after that, Clemson just couldn't figure out how to answer the many different attacks we gave
them. It looked like men vs boys out there.
My seats were in the end zone, so in the second half, I had the opportunity to be a one-man free throw distractor. While I suspect the full house of Crazies would
do a good job, I've got to claim credit for one free throw miss, when I did the "quiet-shout" routine. I can be loud when I want to be!
And what's with the band always speeding up "Let's go Duke?" Yeesh.
As for the cheerleaders:
FSU > Tech
Duke > Clemson
Personally, I am shocked at the latter; Clemson has usually had
attractive squads in the past, but this collection of Clemson cheerleaders was about as well
organized as their team...