The Back Nine comes at you after my favorite weekend of the year, the one when we turn to Daylight Savings. Oh, and congrats to Jamie Lee Curtis. Any friend of Cristopher Guest’s is a friend of mine.
10. When my co-host Jeff Cardozo said on the air that Florida would get into the NIT if it beat LSU at the end of the regular season, I scoffed. He said the gators would be there because of the brand, but I knew that didn’t matter. Then, I started looking at the NETs and other things and realized they would get in. So, they are in and actually seeded fourth in their bracket so it wasn’t even close. The bad news is that you get a UCF team that will actually pull fans into the O-Dome.
11. The tradition continues for Florida basketball coaches. In the history of the school, no coach has ever made the NCAA Tournament in his first season and Norm Sloan had two chances at it. In fact, Mike White and Todd Golden are the only two to qualify for the NIT in their first seasons.
12. Meanwhile, there was not a lot of drama in the “real tournament” except that putting Houston as a higher 1 seed than Kansas was not logical and leaving out Oklahoma State with six Quad 1 wins seems to fly in the face of the whole NET system. I’m just ready for the tournament. I filled out my bracket, but am having a difficult time submitting it because I have Alabama and Miami in the title game.
13. Texas A&M continues to get no respect with a seven seed, but when you don’t play well in the non-conference part of the schedule it catches up to you. That is one of many SEC teams I can’t figure out what to do with. The league got eight teams in and the Big 12 – the best league in basketball by everyone’s standards – got seven. Hmm.
14. There are two things you need to do today if you are going to be like me and binge watch the tournament. First, find out where TruTV is on your cable or Dish and, second, get to know some of the players you’ve never heard of. Or just wing it with some wings.
15. After a tense Friday night win, Florida swept poor Siena and inflated already fluffed up numbers after 18 games. The Gators have five players hitting over .400 and have hit 45 homers and 42 doubles. It starts to get really interesting this weekend.
16. The Players Championship was really good for most of the weekend and then Scottie Scheffler happened. He’s back to No. 1 in the world and I hope some of you got over there to watch because the course was marvelous.
17. It is two months until the 28th Bob Dooley Invitational and you may be tired of hearing about it, but it’s my Back Nine. Just wanted to give a shout-out to J.C. Deacon, the Florida golf coach, who loaded us up with stuff to help and to all the restaurants making it so painless to get gift certificates. Like The Swamp and Prime and Pearl and Harry’s and the Great Outdoors and I could go on and probably will again.
18. Man, I smacked my arthritic right thumb into a railing Saturday (getting old is not for the faint-hearted) so typing is a little painful. Actually, it is a lot painful. So, hopefully no typos. Here’s your playlist:
* “The Way To Your Heart” by Soulsister.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQnxufPCDMI
* “Dirty Work” by Steely Dan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrE_cDvcgJg
* “A Girl Like You” by The Smithereens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LwjD8z2mOg
One of my favorites opening guitar riffs.