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Taking in the madness another way

| March 24, 2019 1:00 AM

It’s just not the same.

For me, the first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament usually means a seat in an arena somewhere — In Salt Lake City, or Ogden, or Seattle, or Boise, or Tucson, or Albuquerque, or Washington, D.C., or San Jose, or San Antonio, or Louisville, or Nashville, or even back in the day, in Pullman.

But not this year.

So I settled for the next best thing — trying to watch as much of the first two days of the tournament from my comfy new recliner.

SOME OF the things you miss by not being there:

- Using your binoculars to scan the crowd for celebs. Having David Robinson walk by in the row in front of you. Seeing Guy Fieri … Bill Walton … Bill Cosby …

OK, maybe that last one was a bad example.

I also understand people use their binoculars to scan for other things during TV timeouts.

- One year, during halftime, they had a band member from one team compete against a band member from the other team in a shootoff — layups, free throws and 3-pointers. For some reason, that was the only year they did that.

- Being able to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken while watching games at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. This was a step up from eating Chicken McNuggets at a Georgia Tech basketball game, back when McDonald’s was the naming rights sponsor for the arena.

- The energy in the crowd at an NCAA site especially when an underdog is trying to pull off an upset. Regardless, even if you have no (Bull)dog in the hunt, many fans end up latching on to a team in each game, for whatever reason (mascot, cheerleaders, whatever).

- Sometimes the recliner gets a little TOO comfortable after a few hours.

- The “color” guy on the AT&T commercials got annoying in a hurry.

- And perhaps the best thing the NCAA does at each site — during one of the TV timeouts, members of the military, past and present, are asked to stand up and be recognized, to a nice ovation.

Of course, there are some advantages to be able to watch all four games at once:

- When I see Colgate, I think of two things — toothpaste, and Ryan Knowles, a former Colgate football assistant and now head coach at Sandpoint High, his alma mater. And not necessarily in that order.

- Nice to see the 13th-seeded Anteaters of UC Irvine finish off the upset of No. 4 Kansas State. Sort of makes up for Belmont (11) not be able to execute at the end of its loss to Maryland (6), and New Mexico State (13) not being able to hit free throws — or a wide-open 3 — at the end in a loss to Auburn (4).

- Hey, the P’zone is back!

- I thought going in that Gardner-Webb would have been a tougher 16 seed for Gonzaga to face in the first round than a weary Fairleigh Dickinson. But the way the Zags played on Thursday, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.

- Oh, no, not again, Virginia!, you thought during the first half on Friday.

- No making the other people in your row stand up when it’s time to use the restroom (although at home, sometimes you have to wake up the wiener dog that’s on your lap).

- I found myself rooting for Wofford, in part because former Lake City High quarterback Ben Widmyer played there.

- Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.

Last year in Nashville, we watched Nevada rally in both games to make an unlikely run to the Sweet 16. This year, with most of those key players back and a much bigger weight on their shoulders, the Wolf Pack put up an absolute stinker of a game in the first round, and were sent home quickly by Florida.

- Nice timing, submitting the Mueller Report midway during the second day of the NCAA tournament.

THURSDAY AND Friday were kinda fun in a different sort of way.

But it’ll be fun to be back in an arena again one of these years.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.