Hoops fever

It's Sweet Sixteen Time!

Last night's basketball games were but an appetizer for the main course today:

Three teams from the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) region of North Carolina--UNC, Duke, N.C. State-- are playing their regional semifinal games tonight. (And but for a very tightly contested second-round loss in double overtime, a fourth North Carolina team, Wake Forest, would be right there with them.)

As Mike Wise observes, reviewing last week's games in the Washington Post:

Meantime, what a weekend for Carolina hoops. For the first time since 1989, three teams from the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle advanced to the round of 16. The Tar Heels, the Wolfpack and the Blue Devils, 2-0, just like that. The state of Indiana did not even have a team in the tournament this year. Down here, they serve sweet tea and humble pie with their hoops.

North Carolina was awesome. The Tar Heels did not wear down Iowa State as much they punished and buried the Cyclones, 92-65, to advance at Charlotte Coliseum. They won their first- and second-round NCAA tournament games by a combined 55 points. The Tar Heels scored 188 points in two games. With respect to Illinois, Roy Williams's team is the best in the country.

As a man who grew up in Raleigh (as a State fan, actually), graduated from the University of North Carolina, and has had the good sense to hate Duke (unless no other ACC team is in contention, in which case I will offer my grudging support) since I was a small child, I must say, it's an embarrassment of riches.

I am thawing out a pound of Don Murray's excellent barbecue (stashed in my freezer since my last trip home), making some cole slaw and (sadly, given current blood-sugar issues) unsweetened iced tea, and settling in tonight with gleeful anticipation.

In the Austin regional semifinals, Duke plays Michigan State at 7:10 PM.

In Syracuse, we've got N.C. State playing Wisconsin at 7:27, followed by UNC vs. Villanova at an estimated start time of 9:57. I'll definitely be taking a disco nap this afternoon to stay strong for that one.

And if it goes like I think it might, UNC will play NC State on Sunday and then go on to face Duke in the Final Four... what my friend BobLee refers to as the "Apocalypse Sunday" scenario of N.C. State beating Carolina is just too grim a prospect to be considered.