March Madness, Yogi-Style (#9)

It stands to reason that at least one of my Top Ten Memories had to take place at Yogi's in Bloomington, where we wasted so many wonderful hours watching sports over the years. The day was March 21th, 2008, the first Friday of last year's March Madness. Noffke and I (and a revolving cast of many others, notably Mark Hajduk, aka The Fairy Godmother Bear, Timmy Shark Transon, Alli, Jamie, what felt like dozens more) had the brilliant idea of watching every game of Friday in what would no doubt become a marathon drink-and-ball festival. We posted up at a table by the front bar, ordered food and pitchers, and dug in for a long, long day. Sixteen games, culminating in Indiana vs. Arkansas and a chance for Dan Dakich and DJ White to save our heartbreaking season. Well, that didn't exactly work out. But there were so many exciting moments along the way that the final body blow in a season full of them didn't hurt quite so bad when it inevitably came. Maybe thanks to all that beer, now that I think of it.

I'm leaning on this ESPN scoreboard page to help my poor Swiss-Cheese brain recall everything that went down. Well, everything but this One Shining Moment here. This, I will never forget. Ty Rogers buried a deep three as time expired in OT to give his Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and their hilarious, fantastic mascot (seen above in all his glory) a 101-99 victory over fifth seeded Drake, ending their excellent season. It was a back-and-forth nailbiter from start to finish, as the two teams traded the lead and showed off some serious lights-out shooting. There were other great games as well. Stephen Curry exploded onto the national stage as Davidson beat Gonzaga early on in a close one. He wasn't the only stud scorer to go off that day. Jack McClinton dropped 38 on St. Mary's to pace his Miami Hurricanes to a first-round win. Sonny Weems piled it on against poor, unfortunate Indiana, scoring 31 and barely missing all night, which was a stark contrast to Eric "It's My Party and I'll Shoot Every Time If I Want To" Gordon going 3-for-15. Have I mentioned that I still can't watch Gordon without grinding my teeth? And the Hilltoppers weren't the only 12 seed to pull an upset. Villanova and Clemson went down to the wire, with the 'Nova boys emerging as victors. Western Kentucky and 'Nova won as 12-seeds, but there was even more madness on this very special day.

Down in Tampa, where both of those 5-12 games took place, Siena was a 13-seed going up against a fourth-seeded Vanderbilt squad, and they absolutely crushed the Commodores. It wasn't even close. The same could not be said for the other 4 vs. 13 game, between San Diego and perennial power UConn. This one went to OT, with a final score of 70-69. Good game, right? Scary one for Jim Calhoun and his boys, right? Uh, San Diego won?! It was just a bracket-bustin' kind of day, I guess. Two 12s and two 13s on to the second round. That's why they call it March Madness.

By the time the late games rolled around, we had run up a pretty ridiculous tab on food and beverages. And then there was our side-betting to consider. At the start of the day, we all grabbed a bunch of quarters and decided on some rules. Basically, anyone could holler out any bet on any game going on. For example, "Drake's goanna shoot a three this time down." And then anyone that wanted to call the bet would throw down a quarter to match yours, "Nope, it'll be a deuce", with the winner taking both quarters, and the bet continuing to the next possession in the case of a push. With three or four people playing at once, and four games on at a time, and many bets being carried over... it was absolute madness, which seemed appropriate, given the day! I don't even remember who ended up walking with the most quarters, but we made literally hundreds of bets over the course of the day and night. (note for purists/legal agents, these 'quarters' were of course wooden. Not real money. Yeah.)

I haven't even mentioned Oregon-Mississippi State, a great game with a big Bulldogs rally, and St. Joes-Oklahoma was a good one too, if I recall (which I might not, come to think of it.) So even though we stumbled out of Yogi's at the end of the night with our hearts in our stomachs after watching the ignomonious end of DJ White's heroic IU career, we did so with full bellies (and bladders), and very pumped for the remainder of the tourney. This was the kind of night that made me want to write about sporting events and the watching thereof. This was the kind of day that legends are made of. I demand that we do it again this year. Chicago? Bloomington? Somewhere in between? You call it, and I am there. And, happily, Eric Gordon won't be joining us.