So, I guess I need to tell more people about my plans.  As much as the Lunatic would love to only watch and rant about basketball, there are just other things going on in life.  In this case, he had to travel for work.  I was in Charlotte for meetings, knowing full-well that unless I get lucky that my meetings ended early and maybe I could catch an earlier flight on stand-by.  But it was not meant to be – when the Sweet 16 games started, I was in the Charlotte airport.

But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t going to cheer on my Boilers.  As is my superstition this year, I changed at the airport into my Purdue sweatshirt over my Purdue T-shirt.  I sat down at the gate for the flight and turned on March Madness On-line.  And my wonderful wife Elizabeth taped the game for me – so I knew I could watch the rest when I got home.  And I was quietly very happy (it would be a little weird to start screaming at my phone in the airport) as I watched the Boilers build up an 11 point lead late in the first half as it became time to board.   As I was getting on the plane, I couldn’t get the video app to work any more, but thanks to ESPN, I knew before the plane took off that Purdue had a 40-28 lead at the half.

So, I texted my wife that I was leaving but might not text her when I land in Richmond – since I didn’t want to get any alerts about the game.  I would watch the second half on tape.  And as I turned off my phone, the flight attendant said, we only have 5 empty seats so we have a very full flight.  And I couldn’t believe my luck as I was sitting next to one of those empty seats.  It was such a nice flight being comfortable in my window seat happily thinking that my Boilers were winning.

Then, a relatively poor choice on my part.  I had such a hard time getting anything to work on my phone other than text messages once I got on the plane, I figured that when we landed – I can quickly turn my phone on, text Elizabeth that we landed, and then simply turn the phone back off – none of the apps were working on the plane anyways.  So, I turned on the phone, pushed the button to write a text message, and then my phone started going crazy.

I had multiple texts from my friend (and old roommate from my days at Purdue), Dave Zimmerman.  I try to ignore the texts coming up at the top of my phone as I quickly text my wife that I am home.   As much as I tried not to read what was flashing at the top, I can’t miss the next one – “Ugh…12….”

I had no clue what 12 meant – but Ugh didn’t sound good.  And of course, as I try to turn off my phone before I get any more information, the March Madness app wakes up and all I see is “CLOSE GAME Tennesseee”  So, here I am – driving down I-64 towards downtown thinking “I must be crazy – I might be coming home to watch potentially the worst half of basketball that I ever watched.   Can I really be going home to watch the 12 point lead disappear.  Then, I see the traffic sign – “CRASH, I-95 NORTH TWO RIGHT LANES BLOCKED”  Seriously, can this be getting any worse – I can’t possibly sit in traffic for a long time thinking about if they lost.  As I get to the I-95 interchange, I made a desparate decision – I was going to go south and go away from my house to catch the Downtown Expressway.  The decision was good – traffic was just sitting (at 10:15 pm at night) on the Northbound lanes.  I think to myself – I am going to have faith – they are going to win.

I talk a little bit to my wife while we fast forward through the first half and then start to watch – and sure enough Purdue after growing the lead to 18 points was watching Tennessee chip away at it.  My wife intelligently goes to bed as I nervously watch the lead continue to shrink.  And sure enough Tennessee takes the lead.  But Purdue’s Ryan Cline hit three-pointer after three-pointer to keep tying the game.  With 10 seconds left Tennessee’s Grant WIlliams grabs an offensive rebound and makes a huge dunk to give the Volunteers a 2 point lead.

Purdue’s Carsen Edwards drove down the court, and got his shot blocked out of bounds with 2.7 seconds.  And then somehow, Purdue in-bounded the ball into Edwards in the corner – who is fouled as he shoots a last second three-pointer.  Three free throws for an 85% FT shooter to win the game.  And sure enough, the Purdue star missed the first FT.  But fortunately, Edwards stayed calm and made both the next 2 free throws to send the game in overtime.

At the start of the overtime, as one of Purdue’s good FT shooters missed another FT, I finally figured out what 12 was – it was the number of free throws that the Boilers missed (and I think the number continued).  But Tennessee wasn’t much better from the line (which was surprising from two teams who were shooting so well from the field), and Purdue had a big tip-in by Nojel Eastern, some big free throws from Grady Eifert and a nice layup from Edwards built the lead to 5 points.  Then, Matt Haarms had a great dunk to give the Boilers a 7 point lead with just 1 1/2 minutes left.  And then the missed FTs from Purdue – and more missed FTs from Tennessee – just enough to keep the lead safe but make fans crazy nervous that they were not wrapping up the game.

And the Boilers survived – we are playing again on Saturday after upsetting #2 Tennessee.  They played a great game against a great team – and most importantly, they survived and advanced.  I should probably check to see what the other texts were from Dave – although I will wait until the morning to answer….. It is after midnight (actually it is 12:42 am).  SO EXCITED!!!!   Totally not even thinking about the fact that both my Elite 8 teams in the West region lost so my bracket is probably going down.  I simply do not care!!!!!!   BOILER UP!!!!!!!!!!!!