March Madness

As most of you know, I love sports.  I feel very blessed to be marrying a man who works in sports.  It means I get free tickets and awesome seats :)  Even though you may think football would be Brett's favorite sport to watch, his favorite is by far basketball.  When he watches football, he analyzes.  With basketball, he can just be a fan.

Brett loves March Madness.  I'm not talking just fill-out-brackets love.  I'm talking following bracketology starting in early February and setting up his Xbox game's tournament to be the predicted match-ups.  Then he plays those games.  Because Brett knew his Heels would be playing in Greensboro for the first rounds of the tournament, he bought us tickets to go to the Round of 32 game, which ended up being against Creighton.  Neither of us have ever been to a NCAA tournament game in person so it was a something we could experience together.

We met Will and Laura in Greensboro.  Since we were a bit early, we went into the ACC Hall of Fame, where Will and Brett did some trivia.  When the gates to the arena opened, I felt like I was part of a herd of cattle the way the crowd moved.  So many people were waiting in line with us. We found our seats and waited an hour before the game started.  (As a side note, wearing a Carolina shirt is something I'm going to have to get used to since I have marital ties to UNC now).

I had been to one Carolina game this year, but it was nothing compared to this game.  Maybe part of it is because the game I saw was against Clemson, which wasn't all that exciting. During warm-ups, John Henson came out to a standing ovation (for those of you who don't know, this was the first game he had played in the tournament because of his wrist injury).  You could feel the excitement in the air.  The crowd at this game was ROCKIN'!  Wow it got really loud. 

Brett was like a little kid at Christmas during the game, getting all excited.  It was really neat to see him be able to enjoy this with his brother.  One of my favorite memories was when the Lehigh players came out at halftime.  The mostly UNC crowd stood up cheering, since Lehigh beat Dook, taking them out of the tournament in the first round (or I guess that's now considered the second round).  UNC fans were coming up to the Lehigh players getting pictures and asking for autographs.  Neat experience for those guys.

UNC ended up beating Creighton 87-73.  Unfortunately, Kendall Marshall fractured his wrist towards the end of the game.  Marshall broke the ACC all-time single season record for assists in the first round of the tournament.  He is an extremely valuable player and a real joy to watch.  I'm amazed at the things he sees and the passes he completes.  The last thing Brett texted me after we left was "Pray for Kendall's wrist."  We're hoping he heals fast!

Overall, it was a wonderful experience, one I hope we will be able to do again in the future.  Thanks for buying me a ticket Brett!!