For those who want to know what it is like to be the Lunatic in March, last night paints a perfect example. I worked until 6:15 pm and left to pick up Katie from her tennis lesson. Everyone was still pretty tired from our trip to New York, and so I was persuaded (rather easily) into getting Chick-Fil-A for dinner. As I am eating, I think to myself that I really should fix the code that pulls the box scores while the family enjoys dinner and watching Big Bang Theory re-runs.
This is when I realize that Purdue is playing – glad to see that they are beating Rutgers at half-time. So, I flip over on my phone to watch Georgia hold on to their lead against South Carolina – a pretty important victory for them on the bubble. By this point, it is around 8:15 pm, the kids have left and Elizabeth has started to watch Jeopardy (we DVR a lot of shows so we don’t watch commercials). I start thinking again about whether or not I will work on the boxscores or watch the Purdue game – instead I get sucked into Jeopardy.
By the time, Jeopardy was over, Purdue had extended its lead to 27 points. I decide not to subject Elizabeth to watching the game – she will have to watch more than enough basketball this month. But I still can’t help but watch on my phone. By the time the game ends around 9:15 pm, my old body is starting to fade towards sleep. But there is still so much to do. Lots of interesting games are on, and I start thinking about updating my bubble watch (since Georgia and North Carolina won and Texas is doing well against Mississippi State).
I head upstairs to leave Elizabeth to her TV shows to do my work. I should know better, sitting in the bed turns into lying down in the bed, and that turns into my eyes starting to close. In this very moment, I realize that one of the reason I didn’t ever do a bubble watch in the past is because updating all the NET rankings and records manually will take me all night (and of course, we know the status of my datapulls). I typically remember this each year when I start my bracketology, and by the time the tournament is over, forget about how much of a headache it is to maintain a quality bracketology page. Design thoughts of better ways to do this go through my head. It is now well after 10 pm, and in the process I haven’t opened my laptop but have enjoyed the distraction of watching the Texas vs Mississippi State game go to overtime (the Longhorns would eventually pull out a huge upset to keep their bubble hopes alive).
I start to write a quick blog post about what is happening on the bubble games when I notice Ohio State and Nebraska have gone to overtime. I decide to post my quick blog and watch the Ohio State game, except apparently in my tiredness, never pushed the publish button. The game goes to commercial and my eyes shut. When they open, the game has somehow gone from 3 minutes left in overtime to 4 minutes left in double overtime.
Next thing I know, Elizabeth comes in seeing me asleep holding my phone in both hands with the black screen saying something on the lines of “Your game has ended”. The Buckeyes did win in double overtime but I could not tell you how. I put my phone on my nightstand and go back to sleep.
In my dreams, I think I see Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton hit a three point shot to give the Buckeyes a lead – or maybe that happened before I really fell asleep. It is hard for the Lunatic to separate dreams from reality in March. Such a wonderful time of year!
At some point, I will have to catch up – a lot happened on the bubble Tuesday night as the confusing SEC bubble got even more confusing, as Texas and Arkansas had looked like they played themselves out of the tournament on Saturday to win major upsets to get back into the conversation late Tuesday evening – at least I think they did.
March Madness is here – such wonderful memories. Such wonderful dreams. Typically there is at least one nightmare since at the end of the day, only one team can claim the title. But that nightmare is worth the fun that the madness brings.
And this time, I will have to remember to hit publish.