Tag / NCAA Tournament

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Travelling The 50 States – Indiana

Over my 47 years, I’ve done my fair share of travelling across these United States.  I thought it would be an interesting experiment go look back at those trips to each of the 31 states I have visited (62% isn’t bad, is it?) and see if, and when, I may be returning.  Working in alphabetical order, we start today with the 19th state to be added to the Union: Indiana.

State: Indiana
Joined the Union: 1816
Visits: 1100+

From the fall of 1992 through the spring of 1997, I matriculated at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.  Accounting for breaks, weekends home, and other holidays, I estimate I would have spent over 1100 days in the Hoosier State.

While it is possible that I visited the state of Indiana at some time during my youth, given its proximity to the Chicagoland area, the first confirmed visit would have been in the early 90s, when I made my campus visit to Purdue.  I can’t say that i have any particular memories from this trip, but I’m fairly sure it happened.  Starting in August of 1992, West Lafayette became my home away from home for the next five years.  In December of 1993, I made my first visit to Indianapolis for a double header of Purdue women’s and men’s basketball at Market Square Arena.

As I was stopped at a gas station before getting on I-65 on my way home after graduation, I said that I would never return to the state of Indiana again.  That pledge lasted a little more than two years, as I returned to campus in September of 1999 to see Purdue defeat Notre Dame at Ross-Ade Stadium.  I would return again in December of 2000 for the final game of the season, seeing Purdue defeat IU and earn their first trip to the Rose Bowl since 1967.

My next trip to Indiana came in March of 2001, when I saw the Monkees at the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville.  In November of 2004, I returned once again to my old stomping grounds to see Purdue once again defeat Indiana at Ross-Ade Stadium.  I made two football trips the following year, watching Purdue fall to Notre Dame in October and defeating Illinois in November.  In 2006, I made my first visit to South Bend with friends from work to see Notre Dame once again defeat the Boilermakers at Notre Dame Stadium.

My next trip to Indiana came in November of 2008, when Purdue managed to defeat Michigan at Ross-Ade Stadium.  The following September, it was another loss against Notre Dame.  In October of 2011, there was another family clash as Purdue defeated Illinois by a touchdown.  Two months later, I spent New Year’s Eve of 2011 at Mackey Arena, watching Purdue defeat the Fighting Illini in my first basketball game back on campus since graduating in 1997.  I returned a little more than a year later on the second day of 2013 for another successful tilt against the Illini at Mackey Arena.

In 2013, I made the mistake of returning to Ross-Ade stadium in September with a work friend, as her husband’s alma mater, Northern Illinois, throttled Purdue.  In March of 2015, a trip to Mackey Arena saw the basketball team beat the Illini, but the football tilt that November went the other way. Continue reading →

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Down To Sixteen And Still Dancing

The Sweet 16 kicks off today following an opening weekend with upsets galore, but, thankfully, with my champion pick still alive.  Unfortunately, half of my Final Four was wiped out, but, hey, that’s the fun part.

Only a couple of Xs in this region, though one of them I had going to the regional final.  Michigan State allowed Coach K’s last go-around to continue and helped contribute to the Big 10’s supposed flameout during the first weekend.

Well, this side of the bracket is where my Final Four picks have flamed out, so nothing here really matters.  Continue reading →

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It’s Dancing Time

The NCAA tournament returns in full force after a year break in 2020 and a bubble tournament centered in Indianapolis in 2021 due to the pandemic.  I’m not in any pools this year, so these selections have no ultimate bearing on my life, aside from personal pride.  So, without further ado, let’s take a look at this year’s selections.

Gonzaga is the overall #1 and my pick to come out of this region and moving on to the Final Four.  I did throw the occasional upset in the earlier rounds, so we’ll see how those pay off.

A bit of an upset here, as I have #3 Tennessee advancing. Continue reading →

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Ready For Some Madness

After a year stuck at home thanks to corona virus, my first sporting event of 2021 was a trip to Indianapolis to see Purdue play in the NCAA tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium.  This month’s picture is from that trip, with Danny posing in front of the inflatable March Madness sign, before we were both disappointed by the outcome of that evening’s contest.

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Fitbit Year 7

A year ago, I set a goal of 2,730,000 steps, an average of 7500 steps per day. Thanks to the ongoing pandemic and a summer where I did very little to take advantage of much of the country still being shut down and no longer having to go to work, I fell quite a bit short of my challenge, finishing more than a million steps behind with only 1,689,490, the third straight year I’ve failed to surpass my yearly goal and the only times I’ve failed aside from 2014 under the old GlobalFit program.  My average step total per week was 32,490.19, which comes out to about 4641.5 per day. The median weekly total was 31,544.5.  My best week was Week 8, where three 9000 step days, including a trip to Indianapolis for the NCAA Tournament, propelled me over to 55,500 steps for the week.  My worst week was Week 32, although that was caused more by my losing access to my charger for a few days and ending up with a dead Fitbit.

For the upcoming year, I’m going to keep things as is, in the hopes that I can finally reverse this downward trend. I am leaving my goal for steps per day at 7500, which would again bring me to a yearly total of 2,730,000 steps. Hopefully this fourth attempt, now that I’ve got this WFH thing down pat, is the one that sticks.

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2021: The Year In Travel

In normal times, this is where I would take a look back at all of the trips I took over the past year and look ahead to what, if any. travel plans I already have for 2022.  Unfortunately, 2021 continued to be far from normal times, as the global pandemic raged on for a second year, though things did manage to open back up slightly.

My first “trip” of the year, if you can call it that, was in March.  On a Friday afternoon, I drove down to Purdue to pick up Danny, before continuing on to Indianapolis so we could watch Purdue in the NCAA tournament.  They managed to completely crap the bed, which made the whole effort worthwhile.  After the game, we traveled back the way we came and I was home early the next morning.

In August, I made my only big trip of the year, driving down to Florida for some fun in the sun.  I had rented a condo on AirBNB that was right on the water, which, thanks to the spacious deck, let me enjoy the view while relaxing and reading.  I also managed to make my first two trips to Tropicana Field, as the White Sox were in town to battle the Rays.  Those experiences did not turn out quite as well.

On the drive home, I stopped in Atlanta and managed to take in a game at Truist Park to see the Yankees battle the Braves.  The following day I completed my journey, making it home in the midst of a torrential downpour, which made the last hour or so of driving so much fun.

The only other trips were back down to Purdue for football games, one in October and two in November.  We didn’t manage to make the second game in November, but it’s the drive that matters.

Looking ahead to 2022, despite the rise in COVID cases due to the omicron variant, I’m planning to return to Hawaii later this month and the family is headed to Boston in May for Angelina’s graduation.  Other than that, there are some baseball trips I want to take this year, but nothing is solid just yet.  Here’s hoping that the world returns to some sort of normalcy, though I’m not optimistic.

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College Basketball Tipoff

The Purdue Boilermakers kick of the 2021-2022 season tonight, meaning it’s time to take our fourth look at the results of the now whopping 17 college basketball games I have attended in my lifetime. You’d think it would be more, since I was a big fan and we had a great team while I was in school, but for some reason I only made it to 2 games while enrolled in college. The other 15 have been post-graduation, including one new game last season, an upsetting appearance in the NCAA tournament against North Texas.  With Danny now at Purdue, this number may go up with a bit more regularity, at least for the next 3 years.  Anyway, without further ado, here are the standings for those 17 games.

All-Time Team Records
Team Won Loss Winning Pctg
Virginia Commonwealth Rams 1 0 1.000
North Texas Mean Green 1 0 1.000
Butler Bulldogs 1 0 1.000
Purdue Boilermakers 10 6 0.625
Northwestern Wildcats 2 3 0.400
Illinois Fighting Illini 2 3 0.400
Vermont Catamounts 0 1 0.000
Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders 0 1 0.000
Long Beach State 49ers 0 1 0.000
Iowa State Cyclones 0 1 0.000
Houston Cougars 0 1 0.000
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Fitbit VII – Week 8

As we kick off our second year of working remotely, a little good news as, thanks to a March Madness step challenge at work, I managed to finish the week over goal for the first time since early August.  The week got off to a good start on Sunday, where I managed to pick up 9100 steps, my highest single day total since my vacation to Michigan in early September.  Monday fell off, coming in 7 steps shy of 5800 as the weather turned bad.  Tuesday bounced back, as I managed to get back over goal with 7600 steps.  Wednesday went back down again, but to a still respectable 6,666 steps.  Thursday saw another big increase, jumping all the way up to 9100 steps.  Friday was a bit of an adventure, as I drove down to Purdue to pick up Danny before heading to Indianapolis to see Purdue disappoint in the NCAA Tournament, ending up with 9600 steps, although I think I lost a few along the way as I relived the 11 PM hour thanks to the time change between EDT and CDT.  Saturday, despite being sore as all get-out from Friday, I still managed to get 7500 steps.

Total steps: 55,581

Daily average: 7940.1

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Socially Distanced Dancing

Because money is more important than the health of their so-called student athletes, the NCAA tournament returns after a year break caused by the outbreak of the corona virus.  For reasons that I’m sure make some sort of sense, games this year will be Friday through Monday instead of Thursday through Sunday.  As the nation’s attention is grabbed for the next few weeks, let’s take a look at my picks for this year’s tournament.

A few minor upsets, but the overall #1 seed, Gonzaga, makes it out on their way to the Final Four.

Purdue finds themselves the #4 seed, playing tomorrow night at Lucas Oil Stadium.  Again, there’s a few minor upsets early in the going, but I have things chalk in the Elite Eight, where Ohio State, the #2 seed, gets through. Continue reading →