What a Win!

Today was the start of the Big Ten Tournament.  IU had to play Michigan in the first game of the day.  The game was definitely hyped up at least on the Big Ten Network as both teams needed a win to help their chances in making it to the Big Dance.  IU had not participated in March Madness since 2016 and a month ago it looked like the Hoosiers were a lock to make it into the 64 team tourney.  Several close loses, however, had changed that.  Michigan had been in the news these past two weeks because their coach had slapped an assistant from Wisconsin in a heated exchange in the handshake line.  Thus, there was a lot of interest in the game.

The first half of the game didn't match up to the hype at least for IU.  We looked overmatched and overwhelmed.  We were down 41-28 at the half, but it felt worse than that.  During the second half I started doing projects around the house with the game on in the background.  Around the ten minute mark I realized that Indiana was on a run and decided to sit down for a bit and catch the action.  I knew that this would be IU's last game of the season, so I wanted to see the seniors play especially Race Thompson and Rob Phinisee.  I didn't expect much but was glad to see that they had cut the seventeen point Michigan lead to below double digits.  I don't know what happened next, but IU seemed to catch on fire.  We not only caught up to the Wolverines, but ended up going around them.  Every possession became tense.  I was watching the game by myself, but that didn't stop me from screaming and jumping around every time we scored.  When Illinois cut it to two with less than a minute left, I was really worried.  We had lost several games that we were leading in the last couple of minutes of the game this season.  Thankfully, Michigan lost the ball and we found ourselves the come back winners of the day.  

I called Doug as soon as it was over and was glad to hear that he had listened to the game on his drive from Tampa to Ocala.  Cameron called me right after school to talk about the game.  He didn't get to watch the second half as he was in English class, but he was able to keep up with the score online.  Once he got home we rewatched the last ten minutes again.  It was just as exciting to watch as it was the first time.  We play Illinois tomorrow.  That will be a tall order as they are seeded number one in the tourney.  Cameron talked about staying home to watch it, but I had him go to school.  I didn't want to jinx the Hoosiers and I knew that he'd be able to watch it on his phone this time.