The male Cardinals of Louisville are #1, defeating Michigan last night for the redbird gentlemen’s 3rd national title. The game sounds like it was a rip rouser of a ruckus.

For the battle between the Michigan Wolverines and Louisville Cardinals, I was, unfortunately, in a meeting – where the chair announced from a glance at his cell that Louisville was behind in the first half, which I took as a good sign for the #1 seed Louisville against the #4 seed Michigan, to be behind and something of the lesser favored by the early action for the more favored by the pollsters’ end predictions. As you have probably espied, Grandpa Jim prefers his teams to fight back, challenged by the action of adversity and testing the metal of their making in a forge of fast-paced flow and fight. And, I have a predilection for signs. The good news is that the signs are only right about half the time (which seems about right, if you think about it), but it is fun to see the sway of the game in what’s around me, inviting a mental gymnastics of anticipations, suggesting the outcome of the event, which is always its own in any event. Still, I like the signs, and the signs held true for Louisville’s advance last night. Final Score: Cardinals 82, Wolverines 76.

Whew, that paragraph took almost as long to say as the game took to play.

Continuing March Madness into April (sled with me on this), today, in the Dr. Naismith calendar of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, is the 40th Day of March. Forty days is a significant length of time in ancient literature, signfying a period of true testing with a welcome outcome for those who endure to the end. This is the last day of the Lenten march of rigor to the basketball season’s ending, and tonight is the women’s final test of skill and daring on the wooden floor beneath the nesting nets awaiting the last arching spheres of two’s and three’s in their count — in other words, this is the last college basketball game of this basketball year.

I think it appropriate that the Lady Cardinals and the Lady Huskies usher this year of hoops to its ending.

The Lady Huskies of the University of Connecticut are seeded #1, and they will be racing across the floor for what they hope will be their eighth national title. The UConn ladies are 7:0 in title games – including a win in 2009 against Louisville, and those sledding Huskies have been the winners the last nine times they have raced the flashing redbirds. Clearly the Cardinals of Lousiville are the underbirds, but they are high-flying birds who have defeated favored opponent after favored opponent on their way to this last game, upsetting the Baylor Bears, Tennessee Volunteers and California Golden Bears. Can they do it one more time? I think the Cardinal Coach stated it well when he said, “Its going to take the best game we’ve played to date.”

Now, that’s a date you don’t want to miss. Tonight, at 7:30 PM CST USA. Pull up a chair, grab the popcorn and soda, and see for yourself if the Ladies of Louisville will make it a match and zoom back with their mates to sweet hometown Kentucky in a gust of glory?

Time will tell. Don’t forget to yell – it’s allowed. Excitement is in the air. Mush on Lady Huskies. Fly free Lady Cardinals. We are with you both to the final second of this last game and the tournament’s crowning moment.

May the signs be yours tonight.

Grandpa Jim