Sitting around in the hotel room in Waco, Tex…
Emptying out the mental notebook…..
• I just want to remind UConn fans of something I believe escapes them far too often. What’s been going on here with the UConn women since 1995 is highly irregular, you know? These things just don’t happen every century. You are watching an aberration, a caricature of what competitive college athletics is supposed to resemble. Geno Auriemma has built the Roman Empire in Storrs, a program that will self-perpetuate for as long as he’s in the mood to push it along. I don’t want to hear any complaining, unless it’s from me. Just remember this: Nothing is forever, not Franklin Roosevelt, not Robinson Cano, not All in Family or the Beatles, not The Sopranos and certainly not UCLA men’s basketball. Did you hear what Geno said last week? “Nothing lasts forever. I’m going to enjoy it while I can.”
• A Baylor student returning to school Sunday on my flight from Dallas said that the 23-minute trip was the shortest itinerary American Airlines runs from in ITS ENTIRE domestic and international grid. He said pilots love to see who can get there the quickest. It took us 18 minutes, meaning you can get from Dallas to Waco quicker than you can cross the George Washington Bridge from the Ft. Lee side these days.
• I assume UConn will be able to handle Odyssey Sims tonight because they usually handle anyone with mere mortal size that doesn’t have a lot of offensive support. Sims may score 35 or she may score 15. But its not going to matter much.
• The Ferrell Center, where tonight’s game will be played, is about 2 miles from the hotels where the media and team are staying. To get there, you drive down a long avenue which on one side is adorned by a memorial with about two dozen longhorn bronzed in still life. The horns on those suckers are big and pointy. If one of them suddenly wants to know who I am rooting for, I am saying Baylor.
• Waco is the home of Dr. Pepper, which, in my opinion, is one of the nation’s most underrated soft drinks. I am going to abandon my normal policy of not drinking sugared soda tonight and have one or two. So if my writing is unusually excited – or erratic – blame the sugar rush.
• I hope, with all sincerity and humility, that it doesn’t take me 44 hours to get home tomorrow. I checked the map of the United States again to be certain that Dallas is not near Detroit, which imprisoned me last week whilst I was trying to get home from the week-long trip to Orlando and Memphis. Detroit is now on my no-fly list, even if I have to go to Detroit.
• I plan on having a good time at tonight’s game, savor the competition. I suspect the most exciting thing that remains for UConn from now until the regional finals may be the conversation between Geno and Louisville’s Jeff Walz before and after their two upcoming games. Or a C. Vivian Stringer press conference. Those are ALWAYS worth a visit.
• If I am one of the first 8,000 people in the Ferrell Center tonight, I am going to ask for a rally towel and bring it home to help my wife accessorize our kitchen, which is bathed in pale green hues.
• As far as I can tell, it is impossible to eat anywhere in this town that doesn’t feature cheese fries as its plate d’jour.
• I hope Kim Mulkey wears something really gold and sparkly tonight.
• I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the rematch with Houston on Feb. 22.
• There are two teams left unbeaten in women’s college basketball this season: UConn and Notre Dame. Yes, God is good.
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