Something I meant to post from the March 5th road trip to Georgetown (Providence won 68-65 on a buzzer beater!)

The Michigan State cheerleaders were also at the Worcester Regional with their men's basketball team...

Game time from one of the biggest upsets in the 2005 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament... Vermont 60, Vermont 57 in overtime

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Bob Ryan talks about how great the '05 NCAA Tournament is so far. I have to agree, especially last weekend in Worcester. What appeared to be a dull regional, turned out to be one of the best ever! The best game of the year, which as of two weeks ago was the West Virginia / Villanova contest from the semifinals of the BIG EAST Tournament. But it was replaced by the Vermont / Syracuse shocker in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Friday night in Worcester. Especially cool are the links to video of the game and post game press conference from the Vermont website! To cap the weekend off, N.C. State / Connecticut was a closely contested contest that saw Julius Hodge (named after Dr. J) display some serious heart and score the game-winning basketball to kick the Huskies out of the NCAA Tournament! I like to think I held open the door for them as their bus drove out of the arena!

Overall a great weekend, we'll see how this one compares, but first, we have a big Bryant men's basketball game against Mount Olive at 1:00 p.m. Eastern in the Elite Eight of the Division II Tournament. Also, the C's are at The Garden which means Antoine returns to the World's Most Fameous Arena wearing Celtic Green! Maybe I'm the only one who's psyched, but the Walker Wiggle has to be all over that place tonite, he'll perform well I know, he loves beating the Knicks.

My best photo of the bunch, in fact, I'm nominating this one as one of the best I've ever taken!

Note the 'Konica Minolta' ad... well I took this photo with a Nikon CoolPix 3200!

One of the best parts of the trip, I played around with the camera, and found the black and white mode... It's really stunning how the photos give off a completely different feel!

The Fleet... from the cheap seats. Still, I just love going to the game!

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Celts game last night was lively. A rousing 105-101 win that Globe writer Peter May says wraps up the Atlantic Division. He makes a decent case for it as well, but lets not get crazy... Also, the Bryant men knocked off Bloomfield and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAAs. A win Tuesday night over hated Bentley (conveiently, the regional is also being held in Waltham) would propell the Bulldogs into the Elite Eight for the first time in school history.

Also, UMass fired men's basketball coach Steve Lappas. Good riddance! If I were the AD I would interview recently fired (a couple of hours ago) Pete Gillen, Matt Doherty (he recruited Sean May and crew, who cares if he's an ass) and two up and coming assistants. MAYBE Tony Barbee, but why not former UConn assistant Glenn Miller (current Brown head coach)? And I defintely want to see some dude I've never heard of in there like someone from Caly-Pomona or the San Francisco Dons head coach. Show me what you know about hiring head coaches McCutcheon! In an interview posted on UMassAthletics.com, McCutcheon freely admits not only will this be his biggest decision to date at UMass, but the biggest decision of his career. GOOD! Half the battle is realizing! Now Get It Done!

It's was a winter wonderland this morning as New England did its best 'Snow Country' impersonation.

Some people would call yesterday's day of basketball exciting... some would call it March Madness. Some (pictured above) would call it devastating for its ability to wipe a person's energy level out, thus leaving them helpless to go out!

Props to the Bryant men's basketball team which steamrolled defensive juggernaut Adelphi yesterday, 69-48 and will face Bloomfield (for the second time this season) on Sunday night. The winner advances to the Sweet Sixteen of the D-II Tournament.

Mark Of A Cheater

Finally, the steroid stuff is getting worse (and probably will continue to do so before it gets better). The New York Daily News had an indepth exclusive anaylsis that ran today causing more chaos.

Remember, this is also the week Schilling and crew are slated to testify in a Congressional Hearing. March 17th will undoubtly be a huge news day between that, and the first round of the NCAA Tournament. There's also the little holiday called St. Patrick's Day which is always a good time!

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And this was a cool article on SU HC Jim Boeheim and his stunning wife... she goes on to say this after SU won the national championship in 2003...

"We went out to dinner at Smith & Wollensky,” Juli said. “Jim’s the kind of guy who wants to go back to his room and wind down. That night at the table, he said, ‘Let’s go to Bourbon Street!’ We went there and walked in the rain and he had beads up to his ears!”

You do have to give props to UConn's Marcus Williams, he's the best point guard (not shooting guard) in the BIG EAST Conference, and I would put him up against anybody in the country. Here are the scary facts, he's only a sophomore, he had a conference-leading 234 assists (8.07 apg) and just 93 turnovers giving him a 2.5 assist-to-turnover ratio... imagine what he'll be like as a senior! Just give Connecticut the NCAA Trophy in 2006, don't even bother with the season.

G'town made it the best game of the day... but in the end it wasn't enough. By the way, can some explain to me how Hoyas rookie big-man Jeff Green can be named a Third-Team All-Conference selection, but not get BIG EAST Rookie of the Year by himself?! He had to share the distinction with UConn's Rudy Gay (the jokes are too numerable) not only wasn't an All-Conference selection, didn't even make honorable mention!

Look out Walter Iooss (do your homework people!). FYI it's pronounced "yoce").

So we stayed in Jersey for a night, and I went back over to The Garden for Thursday's games. I even managed to watch the Connecticut-Georgetown game from courtside, not too shabby.

It was easily the best part of the day.. Scruffy Duffy's! Some people think it has the best wings in The City... I do not agree with "some people", but they have made their case well-known by eating the aforementioned wings at the drop of a hat.

Then we had to go out

See the game was over at this point, so I had to do something to stay entertained.

Singin' the WVU fight song during a timeout

Everyone favorite boy... notice he has an actual rifle.

Notice All-Tournament selection Pittsnogle (No. 34)... the kid certainly made a name for himself during the week.

The Friar and Mountaineer are ready to square off as well...

Madison Square Garden

At The World's Most Famous Arena

This was intersting, we come out of our hotel on Wednesday (game-day) morning, and there are literally 27 police cars lined up on both sides of the street. After wondering what the deal was, we came up with they meet there in the morning, get their assignments and disperse around The City.

Went out to dinner at this place called the Chit-Chat which was interesting... (this isn't it though...)

Photos from the NYC trip to the BIG EAST Tournament... We started Tuesday morning and had a practice on our way to the hotel at Iona College, former home of the PC coaching staff. It's a nifty, quiant (read low budget / quality) gym. The fact we went down Tuesday morning and practiced at Iona instead of PC worked out great as there was a pretty tough snow storm Tuesday night across New England that left lots of people taking a lot of time driving down 95.

Friars Get Pittsnoogled

Let just not talk about it. "It" was the embarrasing display PC put on against West Virginia last Wednesday. It doens't matter that the Mountaineers became the darlings of the tournament, or have really made a name for themselves and should do some damage in the NCAAs, PC played awful, move on.

Bob Ryan was in full-force all weekend, here's his article from the day after BC's loss to WVU (I predicted this loss by the way, I just thought it would be PC doing the honors). Ryan looks over BC's move to the ACC and is very insightful and poignint (spelling?).

And consider this: 14 of the 16 teams in the new Big East have been to the Final Four. Seven have won the championship. This will lead to totally unrealistic expectations. It's not as if 10 of them will be getting NCAA bids.

BR and I seem to be on the same page (scary isn't it) as last night as we both didn't realize Syracuse hadn't won a BIG EAST Tournament Championship since 1992. I know they hadn't won it recently with the dominance of Pittsburgh, but I would have figured the Lawrence Moten era would have brought a trophy back to the Dome.

Wednesday, March 9, 2005 - Ryan Gomes and the Friars take on West Virginia in the first round of the BIG EAST Conference Tournament. Televised live on ESPN, a win would put the Friars in the quarterfinals against Boston College at 12:00 p.m. on Thursday on ESPN 2 where EVERYONE will be rooting against the hated Eagles! GO FRIARS!

And it warmed up and the sun came out later that afternoon, it was like 55 degrees!

In case you didn't believe me

The George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria...

KILTS!

YES! I got my picture with a pint of Guiness!

Could it be true?

Even the BAND was there... the whole afternoon was like a scene out of Animal House. I kept waiting for Dean Wormer to show up, or the Deathmobile.

And these kids should just end their lives right now for being involved with this...

Irish Dancing!

Some little dancing kids Hannah liked...

Hannah and I both agree, this is what are parents will be like in about 10 more years... walking their wolf-dog in a parade.

AH!

More proof that you can find a Red Sox fan anywhere... even at a St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 5th in Alexandria, Virginia!

Had to take a picture of their T-stop (Merto they call it), it HUGE! Their smallest station is probably as big as Park Street on the Boston T. Plus, this places looks like its out of Future-rama at Disney World, retro-80s future look.

Photos from the DC trip... The Washington Monument

PC wins over G'town last Saturday! A two-game winning streak heading into NYC for a Wednesday, 2:00 p.m. contest against West Virginia! GO FRIARS!

Goodbye FleetCenter (Shawmut Center we hardley knew ya!) and welcome the TD BankNorth Garden. Say that five times fast... I'll still be calling it the Fleet for a while, maybe I'll eventually transition over to the Garden.

He gets this article right for sure...

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Dan Shaughnessy with his best article I've ever read. Undoubtly it incorporates his knowledge of the area having grown up in nearby Groton. This piece touches about the life of the recently departed Sutton High School boys basketball coach.

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Jackie Mac talks with 'Twoine about his return to Beantown and his role. He seems to be relishing it and realizing how he doesn't want to be one of those players who bounces around the league... At any rate, the C's with a rousing 104-101 win over the Lakers!

And here's the deal on No. 88 who switched to 8 before the game...

In the big surprise of the night, Walker took the court in his customary No. 8 jersey with rookie Al Jefferson moving down to No. 7.

"I saw Chris [Webber] in the Philly game [with his old number] and I just called up [league offices] and made a big deal [about it]," said Walker. "I said, `Well how did [Webber] get his number back and I didn't? Then, I conned Al Jefferson. I called him to my room and I tried to con that [No. 8] out of him. He said, `Fine.' "

Asked how costly it was to re-acquire No. 8, Walker replied, "That's undisclosed information."

The only player mildly disappointed in the switch was Rivers, who had some choice one-liners ready for No. 88, which Walker wore in his first two games back.

"I could care less about a number," said Rivers. "I thought 88 was better. Twice as nice. Second time around. I had all kinds of crap for that. Now, I don't have anything."

And there's only one question I have left with Gary Payton (G.P.) set to rejoin the team off of waivers... how / why? If your Atlanta, why would you want to cut him loose? You need players! If you don't want him fine, but trade him to someone else! Who's their GM? He sucks!

WALKER WIGGLE RETURNS

Since I'm a couple of days behind, let's get right to the stories, and we start off with Bob Ryan's account where in he says he doesn't know. (But he includes this great Harry Chiti reference!)

Who's happier, Antoine or Celtics fans? His return to the Fleet (or whatever you can buy the name online for) is set for Wednesday night against the Lakers!

The Walker Wiggle Is Back!