Wampum

I KNEW there must be something we fundamentally disagree on!

This, in fact, is very nearly my nightmare Final Four. I can't stand Gino or Pat and Van Chancellor gives me the creeps about as much as the idea of LSU (though I luv Sylvia Fowles).

Back when we had season tix at Maples Pavilion, we loved Tara Vandeveer and her team. Jamila Wideman was even a student of mine. But now...

So, I guess, in spite of this major difference, I'll be rooting for UConn to whip Candace Wiggins and her team since Oklahoma has not been able to be as good as it should be with Courtney Paris and Native phenom Jenna Plumley.

Hey, next year how about a Wampum pool on brackets?

Sorry Robert. But I grew up in Connecticut, where we have absolutely no team to root for except the Huskies. We're freakin' rabid because of it. Plus, they're very accessible, and love to interact with fans (I easily obtained Rebecca Lobo's autograph for my daughter.)

Yes, Gino is a nut, and has some strange inferiority complex regarding Calhoun, but the women's team was in the Final Four on our wedding night twelve years ago, and my spouse, afflicted by a nasty stomach virus, decided to spend that evening with them versus at our reception dinner.

I'm all up for a bracket pool next year. Hopefully, in Geneva, we'll actually have access to television, lacking in our lives these past three years. The last game I really remember watching was the men's game with Duke - I put my dad's ashes on the table in front of the tv with a beer and his UConn cap. I swear the urn shivered in glee at the end.