Not only did we get to go to the Pac-12 Basketball Tournament this year but Salt Lake hosted a round of the National Tournament. Glory be! Justin and I got to watch little Wichita State (who turned out to be quite the Cinderella making it to the Final 4) beat top-ranked Gonzaga and then Arizona kill Harvard. We ended up sitting by some Gonzaga and Wichita St. fans and the WSt fans were saying how cool it was for their little school to have even made it to the tournament and be up against a big dog like Gonzaga. Funny thing is, WSt actually has about 3 times the student population of Gonzaga. So they really were up against a much smaller dog. Gonzaga just has a great basketball program (and not much else) thanks to John Stockton whose jersey is hanging in Energy Solutions Arena. Just FYI, Stockton's son is currently playing for Gonzaga. Must have been pretty cool for him to play in the arena where his dad's jersey is. Or really intimidating. He played well but his team lost. There were a lot of Arizona fans there so that made me happy but if you're just a basketball fan who wanted to watch the game and your team isn't there, you shouldn't wear one of their t-shirts just to be a butthead. I'm talking to the one stupid ASU fan I saw in the crowd. He's lucky he didn't get jumped with all that red and blue walking around!
Waiting at the Trax station. I was proud of my sign :) Also, it looks like there was still some snow on the ground and it was insanely bright, as evidenced by my super squinty eyes.
I just love the Arizona uniforms. They're so pretty :)
They honored 3 members of the only national championship basketball team from Utah, way back in 1944! These guys were so cute!
We killed Harvard! It was a good game :)
It's hard to see but the guy with the big yellow head is the Wichita State mascot, the Shocker. Apparently a shocker is a cross between a firework and an ear of corn :)
Sad day, I forgot this poster at the stadium after I put it behind us to pose for this picture. I bet the cleaning crew just threw it away :(
Maybe my love of birthdays hasn't exactly rubbed off on Justin (I think that's just because he's older ;) but he has thankfully picked up on the fact that my birthday at least is a VERY BIG DEAL! Way back in January he was already saying he had my present and I have to admit I was on the lookout every time I cleaned the apartment. But I never saw anything!! He finally had to spill the beans a week before my birthday and surprised me with tickets to the Pac-12 men's basketball tournament in Las Vegas!! Woot!!! My two loves- Justin and Arizona basketball :) Life doesn't get better than that folks!
Other amazing presents: new slippers from Mom (I find them to be an absolute necessity up here), a new book and these gorgeous flowers from Misha.
We woke up early on Thursday and drove all the way to Vegas.
Justin found a really cheap hotel less than a mile from the MGM Grand where the tournament was being held. We checked in and walked to the arena. Or maybe I skipped a little. We had student tickets and they were supposed to mail them to us but of course through some administrative errors (blah, blah) we had to pick them up at the arena. Only the MGM Grand is HUGE! And not very clearly marked. We were waiting in (the wrong) line when the Utah Pac-12 rep who helped Justin buy the tickets walked by. He had some tickets on him and gave them to us. Here's the best part about that: our ticket package came with one session of two games for each day of the tournament. We missed the first round on Wednesday because Arizona had a bye and we didn't want to take 3 days off work so we forfeited those tickets. We thought that might have been the only day Utah would play and had to decide to miss that game. Utah, however, surprised everyone and made it to the semifinal round. So when Justin and I got to Vegas on Thursday we had to pick Session 1 to watch Arizona or Session 2 to watch Utah. Really not a hard choice for me but since the Utah rep gave us extra tickets and let us know where we could pick up the tickets we had bought, we got to go to both sessions and watch both our teams play!! Yay!! We watched 4 basketball games in a row!! Good thing we're fans :)
There are always lots of things going on during timeouts these days. Contests and giveaways, etc. and Vegas was no exception. There was a man who would come out during the first media timeout in the second half of each game to give away tickets to a Cirque du Soleil show. He was looking for the "loudest fan." You guys know I can get loud when I want to and I wanted free tickets. During the first session our seats were in the corner so I'm pretty sure I had little to no chance to win tickets in those seats but our second session seats were amazing. Just off half court and about 5 rows up. I was so certain I was going to get those tickets. The guy came out during the 3rd game and stood right in front of us. I stood up and screamed and shouted "It's my birthday!!" We made eye contact! And then he ran right by me and gave the tickets to someone else :( But now he knew where I was and I still had a chance. I even got the support of the other fans sitting around us. Apparently other people think birthdays are big deals too. The second half of the 4th game started and the first timeout came, quickly followed by the Cirque ticket man. He stood right in front of me and I jumped and screamed and everyone around me screamed and pointed at me and I knew he was going to give me tickets!! But the poophead gave them to someone else. Again. What a stinker!! All I got was a sore throat and a blister on my toe.
Arizona and Utah both won on Thursday which was better than Cirque tickets anyway and meant we got to watch both teams again. Friday and Saturday only had one session each so we didn't have to choose which team to watch. I was certain Arizona was going to beat UCLA on Friday and make it to the championship game. Partly because everyone else thought so too and partly because Justin and I took advantage of the morning off to go to the temple.
Aaron Barker photography
Side note: I love the Vegas temple! It's actually my favorite celestial room. I've even been to the San Diego temple which everybody else seems to love and personally prefer Vegas. Salt Lake has a special place in my heart of course and is probably my favorite temple silhouette but they recently redid the Vegas celestial room and it is so gorgeous and peaceful. I was very tempted to put Sean Miller and Nick Johnson on the temple roll but I didn't. God doesn't play favorites in sports people, no matter what the athletes say :)
Sad news- Arizona and Utah both lost in the semifinals. Originally I had told Justin that I didn't care who was in the championship game and we should stay to watch it no matter what. Turns out that I didn't think that through and I did not want to watch UCLA in the final. By the way, their win was highly controversial and has actually now resulted in the resignation of the Pac-12 commissioner of officials. Just sayin'.
So Saturday morning (which was actually my birthday) we checked out of the hotel and drove all the way back to SLC to go to the Florida-Utah gymnastics meet that night. Florida and Utah both have excellent gymnastics teams and alternate hosting a meet every year. Justin and I go to the Utah meets pretty often and never miss when Florida comes to visit. That was the original plan before I knew we had tickets to the basketball tournament anyway. We ended up seeing some new friends from the ward at the meet and they went out for Fleming's chocolate lava cake with us afterward.
Which is still so good it almost made me feel better about the Arizona loss.
I do have some other posts in the works but I feel like this one is pretty important :)
Dear Sean Miller,
First off, let me say how pleased I am with what you've done with my Cats after the great Lute Olson retired. Most impressive, keep up the good work. Oh yeah, and well done picking up Tarczewski, Ashley and Jerrett. Nice!
I just have one small favor to ask, please pleasepleasebeat the Gators on Saturday!! You see, my husband went to the University of Florida and, while I have the utmost respect for Billy Donovan and his team, if we lose to them again this year, at home, he may encounter some "irreconcilable differences." So for the sake of my husband, our marriage, the presents under our Christmas tree labelled "Justin" that can easily be returned, the daily tasks of cooking and cleaning that will then be labelled "Justin" and most importantly my space heater* you have to WIN!!
*After pulling off a questionable overtime win in Gainesville last year, Justin threw his shoe. Which hit the space heater and bent the heating element. So then my team had lost and I was cold. It was not a good night. Justin actually went out and bought a new one that night but was able to fix the other the next day. I don't think we'll be watching the game together this year. The trash talking has already begun. Ok, it's a little one-sided- mine. Come on Cats!!!
The Arizona men's basketball team came up to Utah to visit me! Ok, maybe they came to play the Utah Utes, whatever. I had the game scheduled on my calendar for months leading up to this day. I was totally prepared: AZ beanie, shirt, hoodie and poster. That's right! I made a Gator poster for Justin when the Florida gymnastics team came up here three years ago so it was only fair that Arizona got one when they finally made it this far north. I propped it up in my office window all day, just so people would know who I was really cheering for :)
That "A" took me about 45 minutes to make! But it sure looks good :)
Ignore the messy desk and focus on the amazing poster! And my view. Justin works in the basement and is jealous of the fact that I know whether it's snowing or sunny outside simply by looking left.
This was Justin's expression (of exasperation) after lunch when I was already cheering for my Cats. He's a Gator fan and thinks I'm crazy. What do you think "fan" is short for my friend?
Tip-off!!! It may look like Utah is jumping higher but Perry (and AZ) actually got the ball.
We used our student ID's to get in but headed straight for the lower section and some good seats.
77-51. Yeah, it was a blowout.
After the game I got even closer during Kyle Fogg's post-game interview. Was I giddy? Yes.
Wow I almost forgot! I had so much fun cheering my team on to decided victory (I personally started the Ar-i-zon-a chant for my first time ever!) that I didn't get any pictures of Justin's favorite part of the game. I mentioned that we used our student ID's to get in and as we walked through the turnstile we were approached by an AT&T representative. He informed Justin that he was the 20th student attendee and therefore the winner of a new tablet PC!! How cool is that?! See, only good can come from cheering for AZ!!
**They did mention it was good that Justin won and not me because they couldn't allow all of my AZ gear on the court during halftime. Tee hee!!
March Madness is almost here!! Well it is already March and Steve's birthday is today!! (See I do remember other people's b-days) And that is really the beginning of this crazy month. Not to mention baby Anistyn could make her grand debut any day now... Who doesn't love March?!
I know it's not official but a huge Congratulations goes out to this year's Arizona Wildcats for making it back to the tournament!! Woo hoo!! Couldn't be prouder if I was the team's mother :) And another Congrats to Justin and the Park First Ward B team for making it to the regional tournament here in SLC. Go team!! If you all didn't notice at Christmas Justin is a huge football fan when it comes to watching sports and an even bigger basketball fan when it comes to playing. He plays anywhere between 1 and 5 times a week depending on how many pickup games he gets into at the rec center. Our ward has so many "young" men that they actually had two teams. And Justin got on the good team. At least for me- it was the team that most of my friends' husbands also played on. So we got to sit in the stands together once a week and cheer on our men. I would say a surprising number of guys that came out to play had little knowledge of the actual rules and skills needed to play basketball (surprising to me because as a UA alum I can't understand not knowing how to play) but they all had a lot of fun. Those who knew were always willing to teach and it was funny to see everyone fight to stay on the bench rather than stay in the game to ballhog. Although that could have been a result of previous lack of cardiovascular exercise :)
These are pictures from their last regular season game.
Pre-game huddle.
Tip-off- unfortunately Justin was behind the ref in this shot :(
One of Justin's 3-pointers. Again, he was jumping backward- out of the shot. Grrrr.
Finally, he was in my view! I thought this was a great action shot :)
Just to prove he's not the only one busting 3's.
They were so close! But you can see how much fun they all had playing together anyway.
And this was one of the higher scoring games!
Sadly, their regular season record was 1-5 but they won the important game, the one that got them to the tournament. So last Saturday evening Justin and I drove to the first round of Regional Playoffs. (Did they actually have those in the Gila Valley? I really don't remember any tournaments other than softball) We had a surprise walking in when we saw Justin's old roommate suited up for the other team. He got married a year before us and luckily (for him) lives in the ward that has won the past 4 years in a row. (Not that this was unexpected, tournaments are usually set up best record vs. not-the-best record. That's the whole point of being a 1 seed right!) Justin's team didn't win :( but I think that was one of their best games. Justin is a pretty good 3-point shooter so it was really fun for me to watch all the guys try to feed him on the perimeter. And be proud of their assists. And now he has more friends in the ward than just my friends' husbands.
