As I wrote on Friday, I expected tickets to be cheap in Milwaukee for the NCAA Tournament. Of course, my theory was based on my having time to walk around the arena and negotiate with several ticket scalpers. Instead, I woke up late yesterday morning and made it to downtown Milwaukee about 10 minutes before the scheduled first tip between Xavier and Minnesota.
I wanted to find a relatively cheap parking lot quickly and then buy my ticket to session one. However, I got turned around and ended up driving directly …

The best part about March Madness is the second game of the session – it makes for a strange secondary ticket market and an even stranger audience in attendance. Most fans seem to just show up for “their” team’s game – even though the Big Ten did charge them for the “other” game. I mean the cheapest tickets for the session were $40.
Another great part is when that game goes into overtime. The last time I attended a conference tournament, the second game of the session also went into overtime. …

On a Sunday afternoon when the wife was teaching her ice skating students in a competition, I drove to Evanston for the Minnesota at Northwestern game – a typical way to spend Valentine’s Day :-).
Even before today, Northwestern most likely needed to win out the regular season in order to have any chance of making the NCAA Tournament. And today was one of those days that made you question whether they could do so.
Minnesota had an 8-point lead at halftime. Northwestern closed that lead to two points 3:54 into the …