stomping grounds

It doesn't seem likely the baseball team will make Omaha this year.  It's a rebuilding reloading year.  So we're sending our basketball team in their place.  Another postseason, another SEC opponent that borrowed our colors.**  So it goes.

Yes, UVA drew the Florida Gators in the first round.  If you expect the S-curve to hold true to form (it doesn't, because of the other bracket principles like never having conference opponents playing until the Elite 8) we are the best 10 seed and Florida is the worst 7 seed.  This is because Kentucky is the nation's #1 seed, and that team is always on the same side of the bracket as the worst #1 seed.  That makes Mizzou - the likely opponent if we beat Florida - the best #2 seed.

The 30-second book on Florida is that they "can score like crazy, but they can't defend."  KenPom backs that up: Florida is the #3 offensive team in the country but, of the 68 teams in the field, they are 54th on defense, sandwiched between 16A-seeded Vermont (they're going to Dayton on Tuesday) and 15-seeded Loyola (MD).  Florida is one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country, a tough match-up for the pack-line.  But they're also a small team, the kind against whom UVA has found room to work.

Good news as far as I'm concerned: the game is Friday.  I always like to play Friday.  You're in the tournament longer.  And every day that Joe Harris's hand goes between basketball games is a good day.  On a personal note, this is a fun tourney: it's the first since I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first-year that U-M and UVA are in at the same time, and as a special bonus my grad school is also up in this thing.  I will have your game preview Thursday, because Virginia, Michigan, and Detroit are all playing on Friday, plus also screw you it's the tournament I ain't doing shit on Friday.  Tomorrow, I'll catch myself up on all that I missed in the past nine or so days.  Also, on a final programming note, get used to Sunday posts for a while because I'll be firing up my lacrosse bracketology series again next week.  This may, some weeks, mean no Friday posts.

And yes, this means I'm back from Peru.  It was a really fun trip, but at the same time it's nice to be able to turn on a faucet and receive drinkable water.  Peru is a don't-drink-the-water country.  But I found the silver lining: it becomes advisable, sensible, and correct to order beer at every meal.  (No, not breakfast, you degenerate.)  As a little prize this week, each post will include one or two of the best pictures from the trip.

**I read somewhere, and I can't find it anymore but I distinctly remember reading it, that Florida's colors are blue and orange because some representative of the school of some kind was visiting Charlottesville and had been asked to bring back athletic gear for the football team, and naturally what they bought was in blue and orange.  Hence their colors.  That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it even if I can no longer find a shred of evidence.