NCAA Tournament! In Kansas City, Missouri!

Monday worked in my philosophy paper till 5:30 am. Got accepted into the sport management program! Which really means I need to knish off here with good grades. Pfff. Tuesday I finished the paper. I did that paper in under 20 hours and half the time I had class or was sleeping. It was on Boethius and how God is the Ultimate Good and thus one, simple, true happiness and all good, and that for man to be happy we must seek God since he is the source of all that. Very interesting paper at about 2500 words. Yeah, yeah!

Wendsday I was running all over the place, literally running from teh bank to the class room to this that and crisler and the office and back to SQouad, everywhere. Then I went I Rina's house with mark and brad and Bethany to make Alex'a cake and that was a bunch of fun at her house especially talking to her awesome mom about everything from basetball an Spanish and growing up to relationships and marrage. Then we got back to the dorms and presented alex the cake and he loved it.

And then the trip. Oh that mighty trip. It seemed everyone was dropping out of it too. So all that was left was 2 managers and 2 trainers, but we would make the 12 hour trip and represent well. I stayed up from 9pm Weds night to 3am thursday morning working on stuff I needed to do for classes that I would not be able to do while gone. Then the girls picked me up at 3am and we began the long epic adventure. We stayed at a motel in Independence, Missouri, just outside of Kansas City. The stadium is nice, real nice. I am sure they made Sprint Stadium to attract an NBA team or something, but it looks liek this big alean sphere of glass windows. Oh, asn we got sweet tickets too.






The game was so much fun. First off we were on row 2, and the row in front of us was for big12 media and no one was there, so we were practically the front row. And man did we shout! At the start you could see that we were nervous and scared. But we were able to break their press and make shots and the more we made the more confident we grew until we were outdoing them by a long shot, and so our lead grew. One of the best moments was when their best 3-point shooter elbowed Stu right in the head and got ejected, so it made our cause even more reasonable. But some how the higher seeded Clemson found a way to fight back and I thought we had put it away but we began to play to not win and soonn enought they were within 3 with a minute left and oh the nerve as we finally won! The score does not say much, but we dominated that team almost the entire game.


The game was so much fun. First off we were on row 2, and the row in front of us was for big12 media and no one was there, so we were practically the front row. And man did we shout! At the start you could see that we were nervous and scared. But we were able to break their press and make shots and the more we made the more confident we grew until we were outdoing them by a long shot, and so our lead grew. One of the best moments was when their best 3-point shooter elbowed Stu right in the head and got ejected, so it made our cause even more reasonable. But some how the higher seeded Clemson found a way to fight back and I thought we had put it away but we began to play to not win and soonn enought they were within 3 with a minute left and oh the nerve as we finally won! The score does not say much, but we dominated that team almost the entire game.












That night we were so tired that we all crashed. Friday was pretty chill, mostly involving studying and watching tons of march maddness basketball. We also went to the suberbly nice sheraton where the teamw as staying to chill with our fellow managers.

Price Chopper, only the coolest name
and the coolest grocial store ever

Then saturday came, oh that epic saturday. We packed up everything and then went to waffle house on teh way. Steve being the big drinker that he is was just pounding that stuff down. I thought he would surely stop when he knew when but I guess not. But we didnt find that out till later. He entered the stadium fine so we thought it was all good.


I just remember us fighting hard every step if the way. We finally got up and at the end we were down by 1 at the half. But by the last like 8 minutes things got bad. Steve was going nuts and acting super drunk. We had to keep him in place the whole time and make sure he got to his seat. But then all of assudent something hit him and he got out of hand. He was falling over and touching people he should be and I ended the last 5 minutes with me pinning him down at the glad. Stephanie tried but I took over again and just pinned him down. He had to pee. So I told the usher I had him and I walked up the long stairs to the top with Steve an the usher behind us. He called first aid. It was so embersssing. He peed and the aid dude came. The usher in the red coat was awesome tying to help us but the aid guy said there was nothing he could do and that since he was intoxicated he had to leave but someone ha to be with him a they walked out. So that was me. And yes, I got kicked out of beautiful sprint center with my team down on the floor comming backfrom half time and down by 1.

We walked outside to the power and light center. He was aweful. We sat there an the game was already in a lot. We were down by like 10. It sucked. There as a lot of red in there. And Steve sat there with his head down and everyone was staring at him. Some 40 year olds were pointing at him and laughing and I was getting sick of it. He tried to get up and I had him sit next to me. He wanted to leave but there as no where to go. He looked miserable. Those people were laughing at him so bad especially since we were loosing and even though they wore oklahome I didn't care. I told Steve to sit tight and he said ok as I went over and told them to shut it and told them the situation and showed them my ticket. Then they felt bad and said they wouldn't anymore. Then I hear someone yell "dude he is puking!" and I turned around and he wasn't sitting on the steps anymore. He was stumbling off in the opposite direction puking as he walked. So I ran after him feeling like such a looser.

He ran out of the facility and I stopped him and sat him down. He was right next to the reporters car. Then the lights busters came over and said he couldn't come back it because of the intoxication. That was the game for me. Corn. But whatever. He stayed there puking down the street drain until the reporter lady came by and disgustingly made us move. So we walked over a few yards and we stayed there, him sitting down puking and me there tryig I get wifi on my phone because I remembered I had my app on my iPhone to watch all the games. It took forever to get free wifi but I got it and started to watch the fame but I'd kept clitchig. I saw manny foul out an a few crappy calls. Then it was disconected for good but I could hear on the speakers that of was over. I checked tbc score an we lost Oklahoma by 10, 73-63. So me and Steve tried to walk back to meet the girls. I had to carry him. We were getting heckled and staired at by so many people it was aweful. But I stood strong and helped him through.


We found the girls and they were all mad. We walked back ad the girls said we got ripped so bad from the reffs. It was like 15-5 foul difference with them. They had big 12 reffs and it was stupid. Baaa. Freakin Ant was the high scorer with 1 points. Manny fouled out with 11 a I saw on my phone and peedi had single digets. We were just getting all these garbage calls which ruined our chances.












We found the girls and they were all mad. We walked back ad the girls said we got ripped so bad from the reffs. It was like 15-5 foul difference with them. They had big 12 reffs and it was stupid. Baaa. Freakin Ant was the high scorer with 1 points. Manny fouled out with 11 a I saw on my phone and peedi had single digets. We were just getting all these garbage calls which ruined our chances. We were getting all the calls against us and the NBA Freak of Nature, Blake Griffen was getting everything. Really really annoying. We had them with 6 minutes left, down by 3, and when you look at the box score you asked what happened...the reffs did not alow us to compete. The killed us. We had very little chance with that type of officiating there in the end. I am not saying we would have won but I do know we would have had a chance for the Sweet 16.

We got back in the car, cleaned up steve and took the long ride back home. I was awake for almost the whole trip. But it was good. I got to talk to the girls about my faith and it was wonderful. We got back at 9:15am. I put my stuff down and went to bed. Got up at 1:30pm. I felt real good. Didn't get any homework done. Dawg, what a trip. Will never forget.

Trip To Indy

This week was action packed, action packed! So muched happened in so little time. So there were three big days this week: Thursday, Friday, and Sunday

Thursday we had UCOffee, the last one of the year and pretty big since we havent had one since january. So I had some big things planned. I was going to do one of my signiture DP the Great magic routines, a rediculous awkward dating video, and a salsa routine. The salsa was the biggie. Filming was filming and I got John Hughes to do the editing for me because I knew there was no time for me to do it. So that helped a lot. We ended up working on it tons monday, then some on tuesday and some one weds. We had it down pretty good. It started with Bethany and Mark doing some routine that they had coreographed, then they finished and me and Rina popped in between and did our thing. After that the girls had a mini thing anfd then me and Mark had our little Thing. THen we switched partners and danced in unison, then we switched partners. And then after that Mark drops Bethanie on purpose and takes Rina from me and did this sweet areal move and then I go pick up Bethany for this sweet pose at the end and then get tackled by her boyfriend/my roomate Brad. It was quite the ending we had planned, haha. In fact we added Brad on Weds and we had him work on this sweet aria move himself with Bethany were she ran towards him and jumped and he grabed her waist and brought her up in the air so that she would be parallel with the floor. It was funny because they couldnt get the mechanics down so I tried it with Brad and got him on thefirst try perfect. Its a pretty sweet move.

This week was so packed with basketball as well. now that the season was over we were getting ready to go to the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis, indiana. We had a huge win over Minnesota that you will remember from my last post,w hich we really needed to get into the tournament, but nothing was finilized until selection sunday and a win in the first round in the big ten tournament woudl almost seal our chances for the Big Dance. We were preparing for Iowa, so it looked like we had a good shot. So we had practice, then my scout stuff, then other things for th etournament that I had to do. on top of that I got like 10 calls during UCO on weds from Coach Mahoney and his son trying to make a video in tribute of theseasionrs. So I had to walk him through all the steps on how to make a video on a mac and how to edit music and insert it and how to find pictures online and everyhting. Thank God for my iphone because during that meeting of which I missed half of it, I was able to make mutlimple phone calls, text messages, send emails, and get online. I also found some free wifi to help me go fast. Amazing to productivity one can do. But of course I knew that things wouldnt finish as they had hoped, especially when I got a call from coach at 11pm saying that his son, Doland, had gone to bed and couldnt figure out how to save it as a movie file. So Coach saved it to a thumb drive which means it wouldnt work on any other computor since all the files are on that computor. So of course the following day coach gives me the stick, tells me to open what I can and finish the files before he leaves for Indy at 5pm. So there I am trying to get this movie to open with imove and it wouldnt. But I was able to find all the pictures that he had had and they were alll super pixilated. I think he saved the thumb nale versions on google instead of the actual picturtes. So I reverted tot he only thing I relaly knew I had left: make it all over. So I searched for each individual photo that he had in the list and saved them at full size and put hte photos together with smooth transitions and titles and some other speicail effects. I also found two music tracks in the folder so I trimmed them up and put them into one track to fill the whole thing and after working hard at it for about 2 and a half hours I had a full little movie. It was simple, jsut liek Doland had in mind, but it had everything that he wanted. I saved it as a .mov file and put it on the thumb drive and I was a asavior once more. Thank God I didnt have to edit that awkward dating movie.

So Thursday came and the first game against Iowa was that day. i went to Crisler to watch it after I ha all my work done and what a game. We destroyed them. It felt so good. I was also able to lift and then I found one of my new favorite hobbies: shooting. Wel, I already knew I liked to shoot, but I used the rebound gunner that will rebound balls for you and shoot them back at you. It was so relaxing. I was at the top of the key and with the music on and no one else around I was just catch and shoot, catch and shoot. Swish swish swish swish. It was awseome. I loved it. And then we finished them off by liek almost 30, 73-45. Peedi was on fire being 100% in the first half and making our first like 16 points int he game. It was sweet.

sorry about them all being Manny,
he had all the cool action shots

The team knows they played great
and should make the NCAA
Tournament Bid

I finished everything with basketball and was all pumped for the night. I was so so busy that day though running around and getting things done. I had planned to leave Friday morning to go to Indianapolis with 3 other managers to watch the game against Illinois, who was a very good team, for a chance to get to the semifinals on saturday. SO I had to pack and organize and make sure vehicles where good and calsses were exsempt and were got get money for the trip and the whole enchillada. But I also had to get ready for UCOffee. SO I ended up being real late as I got all my stuff prepared for the night and showered and meet up with the girls. We went over with me pumped and ready to perform.

The magic trick was sweet and simple. It was a mentalism one of me predicting 3 events in sequence and then revealing them at the end. it was really good and I know they all enjoyed it. Bugged me because my mom just send me my battery charger for my camera. But I had just charged it 2 weeks and I haddnt been using it at all. So I fugured I was fine...but now, because not 5 minutes into the routine by battery dies...and that sucked so bad because now I wasnt able to record me, the salsa routine and the comedy act and Ashley playing the violin and the music by will and the illegal immigrants band. I coudlnt film anything and it was really annoying. And on top of that I got so many more calls with basketball. I had to keep texting and calling the whole time for this and than and then the managers and the coaches wanted me to go to the office to get smomething and send this and that to the recruits. It was nuts. And then at the end Mark came over from his exam and we got ready to do the salsa rountine. But that was an event in itself. The Awkward Dating Video Here

Me warming up the crowd before my Magic

So I told you already of the basic game plan of the routine. Mark and Bethany were going to start and then me and Rina were gonna come in. Well, things kinda went nuts haha. I was with Mark int he back and they announced that we were going to do a slasa routine. So I ask Mark were Rina is and he told me to go up and around to the other side adn wait for her by the door. So I ran over, but then when I got by thedoor I see mark there moving some of the instruments out of the way and Rina wasnt comming and I text her and wait and wait and then they start singing the ABCs on the piano or something and I really had to pee and Rina wasnt comming and nothing was hapening and I didnt even know if Bethanie was ready. So i ran ove to the bathroom that was right there and started to pee until I heard the salsa song begin and I was like great Corn so I finished up really fast and ran out the door to the side of the stage and there was Mark looking at the audience all smiling and stuff and then Rina went out and like did a little twirle and a bow and I heard "Daniel! Daniel!" so I thought I had to go out and introduce myself too so I go on the floor and do my little DP hey yeah move and then get off the floor adn watch and then I hear Rina say to me "Dance with me!" and I was like oh geez I guess I have to dance! So I walk over real smooth and begin our routine and int he midst off everything that went by so quickly I totally changed the routine at the end and kept going with material that was uncooreographed and it looked real good. Now I wont say that I messed up and I wont say that i intentionally changed it either, but I will say that things change without me noticing and instead of being like, oh, I messed up, or oh, how do we get back to the routine, I accepted it and embraced it and made the best of it. Its kinda like life: you must accept what you are given and make the best of it. Hahaha. So thats what I did and it was awesome. The rest of the routine worked out for the most part and I was looking good in my outfit. Both me and Mark were wearing kaki pants and I had my ncie mexican shoes and we had black pin stripped shirts that were open with a white undershirt underneath. We had our hear slick and it was good. And the girls had all dressed up and did their hair and had some nice dresses for the thing, but I dont even remembered what they looked like.

So I talkd to my buddies afterwards and told them all about the game that I was going to go to and stuff and then said by to the girls who were going to go on a women´s retreate and then had to take off with Bethie. She brought me over to Crisler to get some stuff and thent o the office. I finally got back to my room to see the historic Syracus win in 6 overtimes. I got to see the 3rd-6th overtime and it was intence. So intence, but it kinda became a joke as they kepted being tied and tied.

I didn't go to class at all. I just had morning prayer ate and packed up. Andrew was supposed tinpick me up at 11:15 and then josh and Steve at 11:30. Well he was so where to be found and a large part badto do because I had his phone. He left it at crisler the night before. He finally came right atlfter noon because he had to bring his room mate to he emergency room for cutting his finger with the razor. We finally left and it was a bunch of fun. We talked a lot of basketball and other things. We stopes at mcdonalds for the first time in forever with me. Then I got 2 full throttle juices or ehatver at a gas station only to find them really dirty.

Kept going. Had fun in the car. We stopped just outside of Indy and I found bawls! Ahhh! So so good! A d they had the rootbeer knew too. In cans and bottles! Feels like heveh. So I got 2 of the root beers one original and some new stuff called pure energy. Re root beer tastes just like ibc. Pure energy tastes like orange bawls. Pretty good. I have already spent $20 on energy drinks and bawls today...wow.

Everything a man would ever want:
Pure Energy and a pair of Bawls

We got in the city and we were looking for josh's reporter uncle hotel and we in The most getto área in Indy. So getto. The Indiana womens prison was right there. There were dudes who looked like they haddebt taken a shower in a year. There were crack ladies walking on the streets and it was nutty. Steve liked it though. We just went back to the Conseco filed house and parked in a structure. We walks over saw BT and eddie George and walked in and it was awesome.






The game was annoying. We were competeative in the first only down by one at the half. I got this big pecan ice cream which was a mistake because I couodn finish it before the second half started and it was super sweet. But then we got tired in the second becase of the game the day before against Iowa and they were hitting teir shots and we weren't. Really annoying. And then we fell apart and were down by 20. Then we made a run fir it and got within 7 and then stu missed a transition quick 3 and manny turned it over andrhey hit another shot and it was all over an we lost 60-50.






But the night was not over. Us 4 went over to a pub really close by called oreileys. It was alright, nice spot. I was really upset for a while. I lost my game of pool even though I was up the whole game. Andrew and josh went to move the car and ended up getting no where with hotels until matt dupree gave us one because the roof fell on him in his so they changed him to another and gave him a complementary party suit. But this is completley unofficial. Unofficial. We did not get get a room from Matt, ok? They finially came back with Will and aj and mikey and it was all over. Mahoney was already there and tom was there and everyone had a good time talking and just having fun. By now Steve already had 6 of those big things which was the equivelent of 3 beers. He spent all his money in beers last night. Haha. I saw steve to over to talk to this group of people and so I followed him and before I knew it I was friends with 2 guys from Indiana and one from purdue who were all 32ish and it wad aweomse. They loved me. We talked a long time about everything to sports to eceonomy to college and the tournament. Then AJ And steve and andrew joined us and we talked Michigan and Indiana basketball and then I did some coin magic fir them and they loved it. Us managers were gonna leave and so we got will and mikey and AJ with us ad left. They guy has my numberto meet up with me next gear. He told me good luck, keep what you are doing and enjoy life while you are still in college.



Us 5 had a blast walkig down the street to stake and shake and wow it was so so so good. I cant believe we never did this before. We got here and my thing was so good. It was like a burger with toast and wow. It was a pretty getto old school place but all good. We lauged so hard. It was a great night and I was glad I was able to stay with the boys out there. We really ahd fun times and great memories. Too bad we lost, but hey, we should make it to the tournament.




Video of Indy Pole Here Soon....

Which is the next thing that happened this week that was huge: Selection Sunday. This is the big day, when nothing else matters and all focus is on CBS. Well of course I was completely loaded. I had practice in the morning. Then I had to run, yes, run over to St. Mary for Chatechism. Then I ran back to south quad to take a shower and change. And then I did a fast walk back to Chrisler, just in time to get my blue brother hood shirt on and enter the stadium with the team. I sat there on teh edge with the team in the middle. And the the anticipation started...and it took forever, and ever. They went through the first 3 sections and down to the last one...and we waited and waited and literally there were 3 spots left and finally they called us! And people were going nuts! And the team jumped up as if from a cannon and were going bonkers and I joined in the fun and after all that Beilein got the mic and said "wow, after all the excitment...anyone know who we are playing?" No one knew. Hahah. But we are the 10th seed playing 9th seed Clemson on Thursday in Kansas City Missouri, and hwo knows where that is. Apparently its somewhere in the middle of the US, in one of those unimportant states. Its 12 hour drive and immediately all the managers wanted to go and I was hesitating a little bit because of the drive and since I just got back from Indy and I had an exam and papers and stuff, but they were all 100% convinced, so I guess I might have to do some re-planning, dont you think?


Selection sunday clips:



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