Won. Not Done. Shocking & Tweaking Our Way to the Top. #BBN

Dear 2014 NCAA Selection Committee, You're fired. Why you ask? Well, Monday evening the entire City of Lexington, Kentucky, and approximately 1/4 of the world's population (including 9 UK fans that will be gathered in one home in Beijing, China) will watch #7 seed UCONN play #8 seed Kentucky in a basketball game.  Now by the seeding numbers, if you know much about bracketology you would infer that this game would most likely be a Sweet Sixteen game (hint: it is impossible for a #7 seed to play a #8 seed before then!) played by a couple of scrappy teams that were just thankful to be playing in the tournament and trying on some Cinderella slippers for size.  Well, you would be wrong, as on Monday, these teams are playing for THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. 

I know people hate math, but hang in here with me, and let's do some.  That's right, according to the NCAA Selection Committee, at best the 28th best team is playing the 32nd best team to win it all; at worst it would be the 32nd best team playing the 36th best team. (I would show my work, as math teachers love that, but most people reading this blog are Kentucky fans who started filling out brackets when they were filling out diapers, so I will move on).  The statistical significance of this gross misappropriation and ranking of talent this year is MIND BOGGLING at best, but potentially EPIC.Now it doesn't take a PhD in math (which in an ironic twist, my brilliant brother lacked only his dissertation to attain a PhD in MATH from WISCONSIN) to see what I am saying here.  My point, both Kentucky and UCONN came into this tournament misunderstood, underestimated, and forced into more than their fare share of March Madness to get here.

So anyway, there is a silver lining in all of this.  While unfair, UK's 8 seed created a road to the Final Four that is a bit like a Roman Gladiator being forced to run a gauntlet of vipers, then lions, then tigers, then bears, then hippos (oh, make no mistake these animals are "stone cold killers", I know, I learned that at the Louisville Zoo this week with my kids! Okay in reality, we faced another species of Wildcats, some grain tops, some Cardinals, some Wolverines & then some Badgers but those mascots don't illicit the imagery for this analogy, although meeting a Wolverine in a dark alley is not on my bucket list)  Since we played the Shockers of Wichita State (did I mention they were undefeated until meeting my C-A-T-S in the tournament?), every game has been the making of a cardiac event.  Baptist Health (oh, whose kidding, you will always be Central Baptist Hospital to me) and St. Joseph Cardiac units have been doing a brisk business the last few weeks, of this, I am sure. I hope the Big Blue Nation has some aspirin for these types of events.

Additionally, because the Big Blue Nation follows their CATS in like lemmings to a cliff, all CATS fans are also suffering from sleep disorders as they keep scheduling our games as the last prime time game on the schedule EVERY.SINGLE.TIME(perpetually in the Central Time Zone). For parents of small children this is like cruel and unusual punishment, I swear. Although I am supposed to be preparing a Sunday School lesson instead of writing this blog, it was I who was in bed at 1:30AM listening to Matt Jones and KSR (Kentucky Sports Radio), 2 hours after the game is over, because it is just craziness to win another late prime time game at the buzzer and then just go to sleep. I need my couch, so burning it to pass the time was not an option. 

If you haven't been following along, Aaron "Stone Cold Killer" Harrison nailed a 3 point shot (from a spot damn near in downtown Dallas) with 5.7 seconds left in the game to put the CATS in a winning position. Now 1 of these clutch shots in the last 2 minutes of a game during this tournament is the making of legends but to make 3 of these in 3 back-to-back buzzer beating, cardiac challenging games is EPIC I tell you.  Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio is a big fan of the Harrison twins and he coined the phrase "Stone Cold Killers" to describe their basketball prowess.  As they mentioned on the IMG Wrap up show last night, the boy must have ice water running in his veins because that shot took balls folks. According to the media, the "tweak" that Cal put into place before the tournament involved getting his brother Andrew to pass the ball more.  I say the tweak has been using the bench that has allowed us to win with our Willie out, but in any case, it is just insanely fun.

Folks what I am telling you is this...this tournament has not been an easy road but it has been something AMAZING to watch.  Lock up your couches people, these CATS have 9 lives.

I gotta go teach Sunday School.

#BBN