The Ides of March Madness

Oldham Co. Colonels

"Beware the Ides of March!" said the soothsayer to Roman Dictator, Julius Caesar.  Back "in the day," the  Ides just meant the 15th day of March (as well as May, July, & October, the 13th of other months) and was a way of noting the date. However, this changed in 44 BC when Caesar was murdered by a group of senators led by his friend Brutus.
When? On the Ides of March, of course. Why? Because they felt he was getting too powerful.

Today is the Ides of March and March Madness is upon us!  Many dreams will be realized and shattered.  I'd hope that just having the opportunity to play in the games will be the realization of a dream, yet in the moment at least, if it doesn't go as hoped, it may seem like the end of the world.  Our state has FOUR different teams in the NCAA Tournament - though unfortunately, they have two of them playing each other which isn't nice.

The Oldham County High School boys’ basketball team will be playing in the Boys’ Sweet 16 for the second straight year and the sixth time in the past 11 when it meets Bowling Green at noon.  (Something ominous about the noon showdown!)  At the same time, Murray State University faces Colorado State. At 1:30, Louisville faces Davidson. Depending on "which" UL team takes the court will determine how this goes. Then, tonight, Western Kentucky University (#16 seed) faces the University of Kentucky (#1 Seed) at 6:45.  WKU played a wonderful game the other day, coming from 16 down with 4 minutes to go to win by a point in order to get to this game. President Obama was there, along with the Prime Minister of England. They will always remember playing that game, the biggest comeback in NCAA history!

The Murray and  WKU/KY games will be played at the Yum! Center, University of Louisville's home court, so there will be plenty of local fan support. Around here, basketball is THE sport for many, especially on the college level (because frankly, despite some occasional bowl appearances, our football teams just aren't always that good!) Most people fill out their brackets and productivity will be down! I always do two brackets, one my "reality" bracket of what I think will happen, and the other, my "hope" bracket. My "hope bracket" usually has my favorite teams going at least a game past where they're likely to end! I posted my brackets on my blog yesterday. You can see them by going to the tab above.

So, beware the Ides of March, lest the mighty fall!  (And just watch, a bunch of UK fans will get riled up and think I'm talking about them. LOL.  I'm not.)

Go Colonels! Go Cards! Go Racers! Go Hilltoppers!
and yes, even Go Wildcats!

Tournaments? Must be March

UL - Big East Champions!  :)

There are many ways of marking time; most people use a calendar to keep up with the year. Around here, in Kentucky, calendars aren't all that necessary, or if they are, they don't look like those everywhere else. Right after Christmas, we have basketball season, all of which is a build-up for "March Madness." It leads right into Derby Festival, a couple of weeks of fun until they race some horses and end it all.  So, you can expect quite a bit of basketball musing coming up. (Go Cards!)

Oh sure, other areas have basketball teams, but it's not usually the only big focus. They get distracted by football and baseball - we have those, but everyone knows they're just fillers until basketball starts again. Kids are issued a basketball and a social security number when they're born it seems.