You’re in Santiago, Chile, on March 17 and you’re going nuts about how to learn about the Kansas University-Bradley basketball game. Shazam! The Crowne Plaza hotel has a free Internet service. Did Lady Luck blow on your dice or what?
Allowing for the time difference, I bolt to the keyboard early March 18 and see Bradley 77, Kansas 73. Can’t happen! Did (sob!).
At first I figured some Missouri foreign student had returned home to become an Andes warlord and had seized the ‘Net to spout misinformation to Jayhawks in the locale. Yet upon tuning in to ljworld.com I got painful verification for this shot to the gut. Two lousy years in a row, ambushed by another Killer Bee!
Wife Bev booked this South American adventure about a year ago; she’d been under fire for corrupting NCAA Tournament time. Much as she hated the upset, she breathed easier about not having to hustle constantly to learn of new Kansas conquests.
Bradley was a lot better than most non-Peorians thought. Kansas was, well, Kansas, an erratic young team that forgot to dance with what brung ’em to the picnic. Lots of flat wheels.
So, no pressure for Jayhawk-watching. There’d be ways to follow the other tourney combatants and no anxiety about Bill Self and Co. Probably wouldn’t see much about the following games in this other world far to the south, foreign television with its super-repetitive CNN offerings being what they are. But maybe we’d be able to ferret out an occasional score.
Then another electronic bonus, of sorts. The Holland America Rotterdam we boarded in Valparaiso for a 16-day cruise down around Cape Horn, then bending north to Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, had a big computer area. With exorbitant per-minute prices, of course, but I could keep in touch with home base, the beloved Journal-World and my e-mail.
Caramba! For whatever heavenly reason, ESPN International was carrying the NCAA Tournament games the final two weekends. Dave Pasch and Fran Fraschilla were the throats on duty and did an excellent job. You didn’t even have to be in a bar; your ship cabin television had them. The Florida-UCLA title game was presented on the big screen in the ship’s movie theater. With a wealth of the 1,200 passengers from California and Florida, the place was jammed with Gator-Haters and Uke-Detractors eager to express their loyalties.
Until, of course, Florida took full command and gave one of the finest demonstrations of strategic ball-control and passion imaginable. Good as UCLA was on defense against George Mason, it was embarrassed as badly as I’ve ever seen a Uclan team. The Bruins were de-fanged and de-clawed from the outset; many of their fans left the theater for early bedtime.
One big glitch for the Rotterdam. At least 350 of the 1,200 passengers (and God knows how many crew-staff) were quarantined in cabins at least 24 hours at a time by a scourge of stomach flu that smacked our duo for three days. The experience gave new meaning to the old term “run and gun.” Frequent hash was flashed, all sorts of hand sanitation stations were set up, and Holland America probably squirted more Purell than it used diesel fuel for the 5,000-mile junket.
But at least the agony of a Kansas loss was resolved fast.
