Ohio State have made it to the "Final Four". This is a big deal. They play Kansas on Saturday night in the Superdome, a 75,000 capacity indoor stadium in New Orleans. The final four is the culmination of the NCAA tournament and what every college basketball team in the country will have hoped to reach when the season started back in October.
I was never particularly bothered by basketball before coming here to the US, but this tournament has converted me to college basketball. What is especially appealing, and seems pretty unique in pro or collegiate sport here in the US is the potential for huge upsets with no comeback, and in this respect the closest thing to the FA Cup over here.
Pictured above is CJ McCollumn on the way to two of his 30 points against Duke. He plays for Lehigh, which has a student population of about 7000 students and were seeded 15 in their region, ie the second to worst; Duke were seeded two and had the winningest (that is a real word) college basketball coach on the sidelines for them. Lehigh came out on top 75-70 to make it only the sixth time a 15 seed has beaten a number two seed. That was it, Duke were out, as were Missouri (2) courtesy of tiny Norfolk State (15).
Still on sport (kind of) I have remembered how much I enjoy table tennis. Except here it is called Ping Pong and you play with a paddle and not a bat. Bar Ping Pong seems to be gathering popularity so much so that at the bar where I've been playing for the last few weeks, the paddles have Pabst Blue Ribbon (not very tasty, popular lager) written all over them. My Friday evenings in the Chard Baptist church hall seem to have stood me in good stead and I seem to be able to beat a good few opponents, even if it is happy hour at the bar.
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