Rockin' the Elite Eight

Friday night, a friend of mine named Chris and I ended up at a bar in The Grand Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. It's not someplace we've really gone to before, but Chris wanted the number of some bartender over there. So we sat at the bar and watched some NCAA tournament games, one of which was being played just a few blocks away in the Metrodome. Eventually we end up talking to a couple from Gainesville, FL, decked out in Gator gear. They were a couple of real estate developers. Apparently they go to all of the Gators' home games and make as many tournament games as possible. They asked us if we were going to the Elite Eight game on Sunday. We weren't since we didn't have tickets. She briefly noted that a couple wearing Georgetown sweatshirts weren't going to use theirs since they were heading back home after Georgetown's loss to Florida that night. She walked over to them, took out a wad of cash, and started haggling with them. When she returned, she handed each of us a ticket. We ended up hanging out with these two for the rest of the night. They let us pay $20 apiece for the tickets, much less than their value. Neither of us had any idea how much they actually paid for the tickets. Guess she just got a kick out of helping out a couple of law students. "Just make sure you root for Florida."

That we did (though I had Villanova going to the Final Four in my bracket). These seats were just about as good as you could get: fourth row, right between center court and the Florida bench. Before yesterday, the only NCAA college basketball games I'd ever seen in person were University of Montana games. Watching on TV just doesn't do it justice. These guys were, first of all, enormous. Somehow watching on a two and a half foot TV screen doesn't accurately portray just how gargantuan these guys are. Incredible experience. The only way this could have been better is if they'd had UConn and George Mason in the Minneapolis Region...









































I might have to spend more time at the Grand...