The rest of the Florida trip, by way of observations

#1 - Getting up at 4:00 am to catch a flight, then going straight from the airport to the basketball stadium, then spending 12+ hours at the stadium watching 4 basketball games and getting back to your hotel after midnight makes for one long, exhausting, but awesome day.

#2 - I don't know whose idea it was to combine barbecued pulled pork and nachos, but that guy (and let's face it, it has to be a guy) is now one of my heroes.

#3 - I'm not sure that any of the female Kentucky cheerleaders would satisfy the minimum height requirements to ride the big roller coasters at amusement parks.

#4 - For what we paid for bottled water at the NCAA tournament, it had better have healing properties!

#5 - Getting so drunk that you can barely walk is epically stupid.  Doing so on 6 dollar beers at a spring training baseball game is also a really poor financial decision.

#6 - On a similar note, the NCAA's refusal to allow alcohol sales at tournament games might anger a lot of fans (and disappoint a lot of vendors) but it's probably among the smartest decisions they've ever made.  I don't even want to imagine what introducing heavy alcohol consumption into that environment could result in.

#7 - TV timeouts suck when you aren't watching the game on TV.  During the UCLA/Michigan State game, there were 18 timeouts (8 TV, the maximum 5 called by each team), and then for good measure there was an officials timeout to make sure they had the clock set right near the end of the game.

#8 - I hope, for the sake of the university, that the college-age Florida fans who sat behind us during Florida's game on Saturday were guys who grew up Florida fans but couldn't actually get into the school.  Somehow, I doubt it.

#9 - I was shocked (shocked I say!) to find out that the Rita's stand at the Phillies' spring training games was not observing the "Free ice on the first day of spring" ritual.

#10 - Going from 2 days of the intense, win or go home, fans "living and dying" on every play atmosphere of the NCAA  basketball tournament, to a spring training baseball game is pretty anti-climatic.

#11 -  Given how chaotic the first weekend of the tournament was, how is it that the higher seed won each of the 6 games we saw?  We couldn't even get a 5 seed over a 4.

#12 - It would have done serious harm to my bracket, but I so completely wish Kentucky v. Princeton had gone the other way!  Great games that go down to the last second just aren't quite as memorable when the "big boy" pulls it out.

#13 - I can't say that I was overly shocked to see a guy drumming on a toilet seat that was suspended around his neck during the Kentucky/Princeton game.  That said individual was a member of the Princeton pep band did come as a bit of surprise, however.

#14 - You'd think a guy as big as the Yankees' CC Sabathia wouldn't have any trouble finding baseball pants that didn't fit like pajama bottoms.

#15 - A gentlemen slipped an usher at the Phillies game a $20 to get a chair for an 87 year old man he was with, perhaps his father.  A nice gesture, but had he been thinking ahead, he probably could have used that money to get the man something better than a standing room ticket in the first place.

#16 - The Kentucky fans were split in their allegiances during the Florida games, and the same was true of the Florida fans during Kentucky games.  Some rooted loudly against their hated rivals, others rooted for them in the name of "conference pride."  Those who chose the former chose wisely, and this is not up for debate.