My daughter never really got into basketball growing up, despite me being a diehard Nova fan, watching and listening to all the games (trying to hold the radio in the right position to get reception pre internet, etc.). About 3 years ago, she went with me to the St Joe’s game in the Pavilion (thanks to Tom Plavcan having a couple of extra tickets), and based on the energy and excitement at that game started getting into it a bit and following at a low lever, recognizing players like Arch (although for a about a year she thought his first name was Archie), Ochefu, etc.
As the fates would have it, she and her husband were in Lexington for an extended Easter weekend. I had suggested that they might want to go a little further and check out a game. Come Saturday, the light bulb went on that they were not that far away, and Nova was playing. Around 5:30 PM I get and email with a picture of 2 tickets to the NCAA Regional final with nothing other than a subject line that said “look what we got”. Needless to say, I was both shocked and pleasantly surprised.
Her husband was not a basketball fan at all and had never even been to a college basketball game (they are both engineers, and both went to Stevens where sports are a low priority). Well, they could not have picked a better game to indoctrinate him – he had a blast. They ended up in section 109 among a small contingent of Nova fans and some local Louisville folks. Apparently there was a real obnoxious Kansas fan a few rows up who was so annoying, all the Louisville folks converted to cheering for Nova. They both had a great time and saw a great game in person.
Meanwhile on the home front, I am usually relegated to the basement to watch, which is fine as I can freely express myself there, but on Thursday night and last night my wife, who rarely gets interested, insisted on watching on the main TV in the family room. Even she got into it, yelling at the refs bad call and cheering when things went our way.
All in all, a great weekend was had by all.
