Anyone who knows the family I grew up in knows the month of March and first few days of April are a holiday for us. March Madness! I mean my parents got married right before it began just so they could celebrate their anniversary every year watching the first round without getting crap for it. You may also know that I was raised to be a Duke fan. We love Duke, and if you don't, we still love you and will show you why to love them. I swear, our team spirit (aka true fandome meaning we can also talk crap about them and it is okay because we are real fans) converts people!
That being said, I am so used to Duke choking just before or around the Sweet 16, so why would I have taken the night of the final four off to watch them play? Stupid me. However, I was lucky enough to talk the boys into watching the game with me tonight, and like I said- turned haters in to lovers and true Duke fans!
These boys have probably never watched a full game of basketball in their lives, yet, are the gurus of basketball and just happen to know all the rules of the game, some I didn't even know.
Here are a few:
That's right. The game is just over once a team scores 24 points. This one came from the youngest of the group, and now the biggest Duke fan of the world! The only time he touches a basketball is when we play 21, and his score is typically 0 at the end of the game. Needless to say, he was SHOCKED when they just kept playing after both teams had passed 30 points!
After noticing that Duke had "BONUS" under their name on the score board, one of the boys asked me what that meant. I explained what a bonus, double bonus, and shooting foul was and he nodded like he understood. Later in the game another of the boys asked a similar question, and he explained it back, then added the information about the triple bonus.
"Once a team fouls like 60 or 80 times," he started, "they get put into triple bonus and forfeit. The other team wins."
This one wasn't explained to me until the final seconds of the Kentucky vs. Wisconson game (did anyone guess that outcome?!?!) when KY was down by 4. They could tie with a half court shot. No matter how hard I tried to correct that one I couldn't win, so I went with it. So, Coach Calipari, what were you thinking? You didn't need to foul all those times at the end- you just needed to sink a couple half court shots.
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