So we're here at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, buckled up for a long day of typing, transcribing, writing, uploading video, hogging electrical outlets, sorting through various papers, drinking Diet Coke out of NCAA-mandated Powerade cups and watching open practices that serve as little more than confirmation that these players who'll be playing tomorrow night do indeed have beating hearts and functioning nervous systems.
As a colleague just wisely noted, this off day is way more work than game day itself.
(This may seem tedious, but I can tell you that the NCAA Tournament is the most awesomest thing ever and I wouldn't trade this opportunity for anything. It's an honor to cover this thing.)
Purdue does not conduct its open practice until 5:55 p.m. tonight. If you're in the Eastern time zone, that means it runs right up against "Wheel of Fortune" for you.
But the Boilermaker press availability is at 5:15, when its players have their press conference, followed closely by Matt Painter at 5:30. The plan is to skip out on Painter and just use the provided transcript.
At the NCAA Tournament, teams' open locker room sessions run concurrently with the press conferences, and the open locker room is far more valuable than hearing Matt Painter talk about Robbie Hummel's recovery from knee surgeries for the 7,865th time in the my life. Hummel, too.
At 3:45 p.m. Saint Mary's has its media availability, at which time I intend to find out whether their star, Matthew Bellavedova, played on the Australian Institute of Sport team that Purdue played against on its last overseas tour, when they went Down Under for that exhibition tour following Hummel's freshman season. Either way, I'm going to do a story on Bellavedova and the extra syllable in the middle of his last name that had me inadvertently calling him Bella-buh-dova for a couple days.
It's interesting. Players always want to go someplace warm for these trips. They said all the right things last year about Chicago, but ...
It's warm here, supposed to be 80 today. First stop I made was at the mall to buy short-sleeve shirts, only to see the weather turn cool and overcast for the only portion of the day I'll actually be outside.
This is a pretty nice arena. Must be a nice recruiting advantage for near-by Creighton, which plays its games here.
Anyway, we're having a chat here in a little while. Later we will provide as many stories as we can get written, between here and on this blog board. We will upload video as well, barring any technical glitches.
Long story short, if you're interested in what's going on here, be sure to frequent the site throughout the day, particularly this evening.
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