9:32 – Ok, we’re kicking this one off a few minutes early. And by early, I mean several minutes before our game starts. The night is far from young. In fact, it’s almost my bedtime. Fortunately, I’m bolstered by the fact that Duke is floundering yet again. Though I’ll be shocked if the refs don’t find a way to bail them out here down the stretch.

9:39 – OH MY!!! VCU’s Eric Maynor with ice water in the veins!!!

9:40 – NO SIR, GREG PAULUS!!! This is fantastic. Even if we lose to the Colonels, Duke will still have been eliminated before us. Oh wow, I bet my phone is about to blow up.

9:41 – And there’s Mom with the first celebratory phone call. Amazingly enough, if there’s one person that loves March Madness more than I do, it’s Mom.

9:48 – Mom still talking.

9:55 – Dad now.

10:03 – Well, the celebratory voicemails piled up while I was on the phone with them. Friend-of-the-site Dan and Friend-of-the-site Jason both weighed in with a few choice words for our man Coach K. It seems like everyone is forgetting that the real victim here is G.

10:06 – And we have tip-off. I kinda hope we don’t lose this one. That would somewhat dampen my joy over the Duke situation.

10:12 – I feel compelled to tell you that we’re not going to lose this game. In fact, me might win by 417. It’s 15-3 as I type this.

10:19 – The bad news: Planet Earth is still painfully lacking in TV commentators that know how to pronounce Tyler’s last name. The good news: We’re up 19-3.

10:25 – Dave just called to say that his church league squad played a team that only had four players tonight, and they didn’t beat them nearly as badly as we’re beating EKU.

10:37 – Now that I don’t have much to worry about in this game, it’s time to start thinking about things that I did wrong today. I need someone to help me find the guy that held a crossbow to my head and made me pick Oral Roberts to go to the Sweet Sixteen. Seriously, I can’t remember if I did that as a joke and then forgot to change it or what.

10:42 – Ok, raise your hand if you’re already tired of the “EKU’s Adam Leonard looks like the Notre Dame leprechaun!” silliness. If they’re campaigning for Leonard to make it into April’s Separated at Birth feature, then they clearly don’t realize that we have much bigger plans for next month.

10:52 – I’m more than a little embarrassed that we’re only up a dozen at halftime. Of course, I guess EKU must be a decent team. They’ve lasted longer in this tourney than Duke did, after all.

11:12 – The Colonels have cut it to five. While I’m not particularly worried, I’m not making jokes involving Dave’s church league anymore.

11:18 – ***Flashbacks to the year that we were trailing Fairfield at halftime.***

11:21 – Another call from Dave. He started out with, “What in the WORLD??” This was followed by a minute and 20 seconds of awkward silence before he said, “I have nothing to say, I’m hanging up now.” Colonels cut it to four.

11:25 – The Leprechaun is injured. And they just said he plays for “Eastern Carolina.”

11:30 – Nifty little pass from Ty to Marcus for the layup. So nifty that Jay Bilas decided to make a comment on it. I’d almost forgotten that he was part of this game because he’s only said about 7 words all night.

11:33 – Did my TV really just switch to the Xavier/BYU game? I’d almost prefer to have Mormons knock on my door right now than have to watch them play basketball.

11:37 – And the Mormons lose. If CBS switches me away again they’re going to hear from my congressman. I’m in the state of North Carolina here, folks. Get your act together.

11:45 – It seems we missed a spectacular Reyshawn dunk while CBS was busy showing us the all-important Xavier victory. Of course, in CBS’s defense, we’re suddenly up 21. Don’t know if they had anything to do with it or not.

11:51 – Bilas must have a cold or something. Or maybe he’s just uncomfortable being on CBS. But he sounds like he just woke up.

11:58 – Dewey is easily the most popular kid on our team. “Biscuits” is now a national phenomenon. Now for the Spartans…the team we were supposed to play in the 2nd round last year before they choked and lost to George Mason instead of facing us. I wonder if Wichita State refers to us as “the team we were supposed to play in the Sweet Sixteen before they choked and lost to George Mason instead of facing us…”