Womens Big East Tournament

We spent five days last weekend at the Big East Women's tournament in Hartford. We learned it's not likely we'll want to see four games in one day.

There were lots of characters in the crowd. We had a familiar face sitting near us with a big ole UCONN hat on his head which reminded me of a Dr. Suess hat. He seemed hurt when people didn't chant with him. He'd go out to a platform and raise his arms up and try to get the crowd to spell, chant and sing. We sat next to three lovely people whom we became friendly with. I suppose we must have had good seats because each time we arrived, someone was sitting in our seats and had to be asked to move.

Victoria spent some time watching Mr. Blue Man jump up and down in section 235, behind the home team's basket. He really expends a lot of energy jumping up and down and hollering by himself.

Lots and lots of short haired women who wore fleece vests and comfortable shoes. I say comfortable shoes because they were not wearing sneakers, like I was. There were quite a few men in groups, in their 30s or so. These were not men who gave up on the Husky-men but true fans of women's basketball. Very nice to see.

Watching the games live are really different than on television. You sort of take the athletes for granted when you watch them on television. The UCONN women, who typically I end up cheering against because I want the game to be more interesting, seemed to be the only women in the conference who played anything like the men. We watched a Southern CT Women's basketball team this year and I was amazed at the lack of inside game. All of the dribble penetration ended with passes out to the perimeter for an outside shot.

It's almost becoming a completely different game. I like the way UCONN plays, not for the obvious reasons, but because they have inside game.

In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have gone to the championship game. The parking, only being one game, and it being a school night made for a late night. The game wasn't terribly interesting.