Let the Games Begin! April 5, 2019

Let the Games Begin!  April 5, 2019

It rained hard last night - hard enough to wake me from a relatively sound sleep.  But this morning is mostly sunny.  Tonight our beloved UCONN women take on their arch rivals, Notre Dame, in the semi-final match.  The first match up is Baylor against Oregon State.  We were rooting for Oregon in that match-up.  The UCONN game is the second game tonight, and it was a nail-biter.

End of the first period: UCONN leads by four!

At the half, UCONN leads by a point - on a buzzer-beater by Katie Lou!

End of the third period:  UCONN up by two points!  Nip and tuck for sure.

Ack!  No Championship for UCONN: Notre Dame wins by a score of 81 to 76!

We played hard, but came up short at the end of the game.  Tomorrow night it will be Baylor versus Notre Dame.  I think I will root for Baylor, but in truth I don't like either team very much.

It was a very long day, but overall a fun one.  We hung out at the house for the morning - Jeff played piano while I blogged and read.  We each had a meatloaf sandwich for lunch, and then we decided to go to the aquarium.  We drove to Ybor City, parked on the street for free, and hopped on the street car, which stopped right at the aquarium.  It is a really neat aquarium that is very well maintained and very interesting.  You start by walking through a "wetlands" where you can see some fish, birds, snakes, and otters.  Then you continue on into the aquarium.  Exhibits were beautiful and very well explained.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but the ones I took were certainly pretty.  We were probably there for a couple of hours, including some time we people watched just outside the aquarium as we sipped a bottle of water.  Then we walked over to the river walk and enjoyed beer and wine as we chatted with folks at the bar. UCONN fans were certainly in abundance throughout our travels.  I chatted with a young man who works as a cameraman for ESPN - he doesn't usually work the women's game, but took the opportunity to go to Tampa.  He was very interesting to talk with - lives in Newington, but grew up in Hartford.  Jeff ate a piece of key lime pie -- it was more delicious that the one he had the other night, but not as pretty a presentation, I thought.

That's our waiter, Greg, in the background.

From there we walked over to the arena - not too far away and sat in the park across the street until the gates opened.  The Amelie Arena is really lovely, and they claimed it was a "sell-out" of 20,500, but there were many empty seats.  I suspect that some Louisville and Mississippi State fans had purchased tickets, but decided not to make the trip when their #1 seeded teams were knocked out by UCONN and Oregon.  We sat next to two ladies who were Mississippi State fans, though.

The first game was between Baylor and Oregon, and it was a back and forth, nip and tuck game until the fourth period.  Oregon was raining three-point shots until they went "cold" late in the fourth, which enabled Baylor to overtake them.  Trying to get something to eat between the two games was nearly impossible -- 25 minutes between games and thousands of people all with the same idea.  Jeff did manage to score a bag of peanuts (which is what he really wanted) and a bottle of water.  I passed on the whole thing and went back to my seat.

The UCONN/Notre Dame game was very exciting to watch, and we really did give them a run for their money.  I was struck by a couple of things - completely unrelated to basketball.  First, the bands and cheerleaders alternated in performing.  When Notre Dame's cheerleaders were performing, our cheerleaders sat politely and watched, but when it was UCONN's turn to take the floor, Notre Dame's cheerleaders were doing their own stunts on the sideline.  Seemed impolite to me -- but maybe it's just that I'm not a Notre Dame fan.  Their mascot (a guy dressed up like a leprechaun) is kind of silly too (but then again, so is a kid dressed up like a dog, so ... what do I know?).

Anyway, it was after 11 p.m. when we got out of the arena and made our way to the street car stop to catch the car back to Ybor City.  Of course, there were many others with the same idea, so we had a bit of a wait before we were able to board a car.  By the time we got back to the house, it was after 1 a.m.  We each had a small glass of wine and then headed for slumberland.