I A'int As Good As I Once Was

Sigh... getting old is hell. This weekend was Mom's Weekend here on campus. Ordinarily, I'd be off w/ JohnnyO, Pat, and Co. at Kam's hitting on moms and deliberately ignoring their daughters. It's just something that we do. Sort of keeps the girls on their toes. But alas. They's moved on, and I'm left to my own devices.

Actually, the night wasn't bad. Just a little more low key. At church, we had a little art exhibit, and there was one awesome painting that featured a self-portrait of the artist (a pretty cute girl), staring down this huge gorilla. So naturally, we had to have some fun with that one. So I stand in place of the gorilla, and get this scowl on my face and have Darren take a picture. When I get the picture, I'll put it up here for shits and giggles.

After that, chilling out, eating muffins and drinking pina coladas over at Fetz's place. Nothing exciting, but it was cool to just chill and talk about what was going on. Of course, I had the chance to spout random, controversial thoughts that I may or may not actually believe. And that's usually fun. I just sort of come up with a random position on a topic that will rile people up, and I'll see if I can score a few points for things that are obviously wrong. In the past, I've offered convincing arguments for the need of me annexing an island nation, like maybe Haiti and I've discussed the merits of euthanasia. In a previous posting I've talked about why not voting makes me cool. Last night, I was trying to convince Jen, one of our I-Team leaders, that women shouldn't hold leadership positions in church. I think that I may have gotten through to her.

So after that was a little run to Antonio's, our new pizza joint here in Campustown. New York-style pizza here in the heartland. It's not the best slice I've ever had, but it's darned good. They'll get a write up over on foodgeek at some point. But we made a nice run out there at 1:15, just in time to get there, get a slice, and start watching the show - drunk people (and their Moms!) stumbling in for late night food. Definitely good times.

Of course, we didn't have any run-ins with the offensive line, we didn't have to srping anyone from jail, and we didn't close out the night with a drunken sing-along. Oh well. I suppse that I have to grow up at some point. May as well be now.

At some point, we'll write some about my academic career. I think that we've got our fingers on some things that may be cool.

Until then.

-Chairman

Well? What do I know?

The game played out a little differently than I thought. Interesting stuff throughout. 1st half, we let things slip - a few calls didn't go our way, and we never solved the 2-3. Our shots weren't falling, and I think that we looked frustrated out there. And just as importantly, they hit some big 3's, and McCants played well. I liked what Roy Williams was doing - as soon as they got up by 5 or 6, they went into 2-3. Sort of like saying, we know that we can't hang in man on you, so if we get up, we're slowing the game down. He gets props for that first half. So, we walk into the locker rooms down a baker's dozen.

2nd half comes in - we start to look good on offense, as shots start falling. But they're hitting big shots, too. But, we had a little run to cut it to 12, and then you could see that North Carolina was going to let us back into the game. As soon as Deron hits a jumper, they fly down court and have one of their players (Jawad Williams) heave a quick 3 from the baseline. We get the ball and get a layup out of it. Then Felton comes flying down the court and takes a tough 17 foot pull-up. We get the board, and get a 3 out of it. We're only down 7, and we've got a ballgame. The most important thing that didn't happen for UNC was that they never went back into 2-3. They tried to run this 1-3-1 on us, that didn't work so well, but never back into 2-3, which we never solved. And more importantly, would have slowed us down on offense.

And really, we played well down the stretch. It went back and forth, with their lead waxing and waning from 7 down to 0. But we could never take the lead. The moment that defined the game was when it was tied 70-70 with a little over 2:00 left in the game. We had just gotten a stop on defense, and we were looking good. All year, we had been a tough team, and after the Arizona game, everyone was figuring, "here we go again." North Carolina was looking for a reason to fold. They had been giving up leads all half, but had been just good enough to get the leads back. It had to end some time.

But it didn't.

Deron got a great look for a 3, online, but no good. The ball took a high bounce over the backboard, and then Marvin Williams makes this awesome followup off of a missed shot on the other end. 72-20. You could say that we had our chances after that, but it didn't really feel that way there.

When it was tied at 70, looking around the stands, there was feeling of worry coming from the blue section. And all of the students in orange were ready to explode. As soon as we saw that Deron was going to get a clean look, we fell silent, held our breaths, and got into that shallow knee bend, ready to jump up and throw our arms in the air. The areana would have erupted, and it would have been over. UNC was looking for a reason to fold, but we didn't quite give it to them.

This was our guy. Deron won the Arizona game for us. Even in an off shooting night, Deron scored the first and last baskets for us against Louisville in the semifinals. And Deron made the first bucket for us tonight with that beautiful pull-up 14 footer. So Deron had to have the last jumper ready, didn't he? Deron's been the General for our team all year. Deron was the one with ice water running through his veins. Deron was going to win it again for us. Online, but short, I believe. You can't fault him at all. In fact, all you can do is praise how much he has improved from his freshman year, and how much of a leader he's become. He was our guy. He just missed the shot.

I thought that we may have made our furious comeback a little bit too early. But you can't really choose when you go on a run. We cut the lead from 13 (as much as 15, really) down to 2 with just under 13 minutes left to go. It's hard to keep up your intensity for the rest of the game. You can go on adrenaline and emotion for 5 or 6 minutes, but it's hard to do it for 13. But we almost did. Until the last errant pass (and nice anticipation from Raymond Felton) from Luther to Dee, we had played well - our first turnover of the 2nd half.

But, really, if you look at the game, we just had a lot of tough situations in the 1st half. 11 of 35 from the field. We had a couple of 3's just rim out. Deron missed 2 free throws. We didn't get a whole lot of calls from the refs. And we never figured out the 2-3. That was where we had to get desperate. I think that we just ran out of jumpers at the end.

Almost.

I sort of know what it feels like to be a Cubs fan now. Wait til' next year.

Damn.

-Chairman

Actually, it's April at the Arch

Okay. Sunday afternoon, and I'm back on campus. 40 minutes left to go, with UNC up next. The March to the Arch ends on Monday night.

For some reason, I'm not all that afraid of this game. Watching UNC and Michigan St., I just don't think that UNC will be able to stand up to our halfcourt defense. Thre's so much of a difference when you have a team that makes you work. Here's the thing. UNC shot 35 for 71, which is good. But they only got 18 assists on those 35 shots. We're going to make them work harder for buckets than anyone else has this season.

The other lesson to be learned from last night. I don't think that any team in the country can play us in man. Rick Pitino knew that. Until the last few minutes of the game, the were in 2-3 zone for all but 3 possessions. Of those 3, 2 of them were from baseline inbounds. I think that we got 7 points in those 3 possessions. It wasn't until the game got to 8 or 9 points when they mixed in more man. And that was when the game got ugly.

I think that we shoot too well for a 2-3 to work on us all day. And we destroy man-to-man. UNC wants to play man on us all day and keep the game moving faster. I think that works into our hands. We'll score on them easier than they'll score on us. Thing to watch: will they get a good look on offense before the shot clock hits 12? If we make them work on offense like we have against teams all year, they won't be able to hold up.

We'll wear them down, and pull away. I think that we take it by about 10. Maybe 80-70? We'll see. Regardless, this team has given us a great run. They've handled themselves with class, and they've always played hard. You can't ask for anything else, win or lose. But you'd always rather win

-Chairman

Marching Onward...

...to St. Louis. April at the Arch is a reality. I think that our Stylin' Illini will do it. First up? Louisville. Tough squad. Great coach. No depth. I think that we're better, and we're deeper. Whatever advantage Pitino has over Weber won't come to play. They can't roll with us in man. And I think that they'll get into trouble if they try to zone up on us. They don't have enough offense to really threaten. Palacios and Myles aren't good scorers inside. And if they think that they'll be tougher than us, well, they'll be mistaken. You don't run 15-1 through the Big Ten by being soft. I think that we'll handle them like how I thought we were going to handle Arizona - by a dozen or so. Of course, you know how that last game went. We'll see what I have to say on Sunday. I need to get packed. I'm going to St. Louis in the morning.

-Chairman