The cardinals of spring prevail. Everywhere you turn, cardinals are in the air. The sightings of the season hold true. Both the Gentlemen and Lady Redbirds win and advance!!
On Saturday, The Louisville Cardinal men defeated the Shockers of Wichita State and earned the right to migrate their entire flock of male redbirds to the title game. For that game, it will be Louisville against the Wolverines of Michigan — who defeated the Orangemen of Syracuse.
The men’s final game is tonight, March 39th, at 8:23 PM CST USA. In NCAA Basketball parlance, today must be March 39th (and not April 8th as the calendar so incorrectly states) because March Madness must continue until the Big Dance is over and the prevailing men and women teams earn their hoops and are crowned champions of the court. Until that happy outcome is attained, April must bide its time and spring must wait to bud. (Sorry, Punxsutawney Phil, but even groundhogs will be glued to the game in their burrows until the rite is complete.) These are the Days of the Peach Basket, and the world waits the crowning of the champions of college B-ball.
Returning to the women, last night the female redbirds of Louisville became the first #5 seed in the history of the ladies’ tournament to advance to the championship game. In a tightly played match, the Golden Bears of California had almost wrestled their opponents to the floor when the Cardinals started pecking back from a 10-point halftime deficit. At the end, it was a race for the final baskets, with the lady cardinals lifting their shots over the stumbling ursidaes to claim the victory perch and advance to the last limb of the tourney.
Their opponent was harder to determine. I had thought the Irish colleens of Notre Dame would dance their way to the winner’s game. On the drive home from the airport last night as the game was playing, a sleek new car cut in front of us. It was then that I saw the plates of that car: “Connecticut.” My heart sank. I knew in the way that fans without their screens know – in the heart. I waited and hoped that the Notre Dames ladies would prevail – for what would have been the fourth time this season – over the lady Huskies, but it was not to be so. And, like all good fans of the game from every region of the land, I quickly recovered to congratulate the winner and look forward to the next contest – the final game of the NCAA tournament that will officially end the season and allow April to return with the sweet scents of a new season.
Tomorrow night at 6:30 PM CST USA, the two remaining female basketball teams of the 2013 college season will nod and smile and begin the final turn of a very full dance card that will have reached its last song. The University of Louisville versus the University of Connecticut. Lady Cardinals versus Lady Huskies. By then, we will know if the Men Redbirds are champs, and if the Lady Redbirds are hoping to be dual men’s and women’s NCAA champions. Same school champions last happened in 2004 when the University of Connecticut men and women did just that. And, who do you think the Louisville women are playing? You got it – the UConn women. It will assuredly make for a very exciting concluding evening of college basketball playing and watching.
See you court-side – on the telly, of course.
Go Team and Fans, too,
Grandpa Jim