It’s Holy (Basketball) Week

It’s High Holy Week of a totally different kind in the Purcell household – NCAA Tournament Time. You’ve got your Holy Thursday when Kent State and UK play in the first round. And then you’ve got Good Friday (which will be spent this year at Scorchers in The Valley) where it’s all basketball, all the time, and we’re huddled over our tournament picks figuring out who has the best chance to win the 9,000 pools we’ve entered. These are the days when talk turns away from politics and the general ruination of the world, and turns toward the much more idealistic topics of sleeper teams and darkhorses, and underdog point guards who scratch and claw their way past teams with better records and reputations.

You can be sure there will be some serious praying going down under our roof during Holy Week.

Dave: Dear God, please let UK and Kent State win their games, and if you let them win I promise that I will clean the house from here to eternity so Aim never has to do it again. And I promise I won’t say a word when she goes on a shopping spree and completely destroys our budget for the month. Even bigger promises if you let Kent State, UK, and Xavier advance past the first few rounds.

Amy: Dear God, please let UK and Kent State win their games so Dave doesn’t have a heart attack like he almost did on March 28, 1992 when Christian Laettner from Duke hit the buzzer-beating final shot to beat UK out of spot in the Final Four. If you let them win, I promise I will never ever get distracted when Dave is talking to me about basketball or politics or academia, and I will never start thinking about something else, like which spring sandals to buy with a tiny chunk of my bonus. Should I go with the neutral wedge? Those metallic silver sandals were pretty cool. Oh, and you can vouch for me when I say I was going to buy a pair of wooden-heeled sandals last year when I was shopping with Jody, and then I decided against them because I thought wood plus feet plus summer equals sweaty, slippery feet but now wooden heels, a-la 70s rock girl, are all the rage. Why am I wasting my time on this writing thing when I could be the next Manolo or Jimmy Choo? Maybe after I write the Great American Novel, I’ll start my own line of shoes. I can name each design after a famous book title. Like who wouldn’t want to wear a pair of strappy sandals called East of Eden or a pair of Mary Janes called Madam Bovary? Very sexy. Wait. What was I asking you about? Oh yeah, UK. Please let them win. I promise to listen all the time and never get distracted.

Way back in the 90s when UK was a dynasty and Rick Pitino was the coach, there was a whole pattern of prayer in the Purcell family. Dave’s dad loved basketball and the two of them, being very similar in Irish temperament and passion, loved to argue about basketball possibly as much as they loved watching the games. Shortly after Dave’s dad passed away (right before we were married in 1991), Dave and his sister started this tradition of launching balloons into the air before each UK tournament game. Dave would also light candles. They sent up their offerings to Dave’s dad and asked him to give UK a little nudge toward another win. Incredibly, there were times they’d let off the balloons and the game would instantly turn in UK’s favor. Other times, Dave’s dad must have been napping because there would be nervous phone calls at halftime between him and his sister, and, frequently, I ended up getting more nervous than either of them, and couldn’t watch the end of the game. But the prayers worked: Kentucky went to three straight finals, winning the title in two of them. And the ’98 title played a big role in our decision to move back to Cincinnati from Chicago.

You could say Dave has been a basketball fan since he could say “He was fouled!” I came to love the tournament through him and it’s easy to get caught up in the frenzy. There are betting pools everywhere; a few years ago, I won big in our friend Doug’s pool. Even Alice and Macy get into the action. The pooches made some pretty decent picks this year. With 62 games to share with Macy, Alice had 31 extra treats on Tuesday night, clearly a special night for her. The girls have Butler and Memphis in the Big Dance. At least we’re honest about their selections. And who knows, Butler may surprise us all. That’s what makes the tournament so special.

Since Dave is the resident basketball expert in the Purcell house, I decided to interview him so he could share his thoughts on the tournament, his history with it, and his method for picking teams in the pool.

Amy: Dr. Purcell, what do you enjoy most about this time of year?

Dave: That there is so much hoops on at one time. That there are upsets and great storylines and teams I don’t get to see all year that I can fall in love with. Discovering teams like George Mason and all the other upset specials is fantastic. And I love the Holy First Friday of March Madness where I try to stay in a bar from noon to midnight, watching as many games as possible. It’s truly my favorite time of the year, more so than Christmas or Halloween.

Amy: What superstitions do you have during tournament time?

Dave:  When my teams play, I generally sit in the same place and if they win, I’ll wear the same clothes (unwashed) the next game. I also adopt a “lucky pillow” when we watch the games at home and hold onto it (and throw it) throughout the games.

Amy: What’s your method for making your picks?

Dave: I use the Sagarin ratings and the Pomeroy ratings, and I try to blot out all of my traditional biases (I hate Duke, PAC 10 teams are weak, Big 10 teams choke, and inevitably some great team I remember from 1987 trips me up) in order to make reasonable picks. I usually pick far more with my heart than my head which is why I usually don’t do very well and which is why you usually beat me in the pools. You don’t have the history with the tournament like I do so your biases don’t run as deep. 

Amy: Who are your upset specials this year?

Dave: I don’t have any. I’m trying to cut back on my upsets. The lowest seed I have going to the Sweet 16 is Pittsburgh.

Amy: I know your least favorite tournament moment of all time (see Christian Laettner above). What is your most favorite tournament moment of all time?

Dave: UK winning the title over Duke in 1978. It was the first KY basketball championship of my lifetime and I was jumping around the living room with my dad. Kyle Macy was the star point guard and my favorite UK player of all time. It’s no coincidence that we now have a dog named Macy. Jack Givens, the Goose, had 41 points. The Goose Was Golden was the Sports Illustrated headline the next week. I was 12 years but I remember all of it.

Amy: What would you say to people who don’t care about the tournament?

Dave: Why do you hate America?

Amy: Anything else?

Dave: As much as I’m increasingly disappointed with the business side of college sports every year, it’s still the best sporting event on Earth. Go Flashes!

If you’re up for game-watching on Friday or want to test Dave’s basketball acumen, we’ll be at Scorchers in The Valley from noon on. As our friend Doug Kennedy says, “Good luck in the pool…but not too much.”