I received a call last Tuesday letting me know I had a ticket to the Final Four if I wanted one. Never having been to the Final Four before, I took it. I contacted my friend Toni in Minneapolis to see if I could stay at her place.

I flew in Saturday morning on a red eye from San Francisco, and arrived to find it snowing. I couldn't get upgraded to first class, for the price of the ticket I was willing to pay the small difference to purchase the first class seat outright, but they were sold out. I hate to drive in snow. Toni and I went out to breakfast at a local place that had excellent French toast.

My initial ticket was in the upper deck, but at the alumni reception at Nicollet Island, I met a friend and traded down. I was near the back of the lower deck (which is fine, since there were only two rows behind me, I could stand.) behind the Duke bench.

First game was exciting. Key was Arizona's 21-3 run at the start of the second half. Michigan State made a game effort after that, but it clearly wasn't enough.

The second game was what I had come to see. Duke vs Maryland IV. The game opened up with Maryland hot. It seemed like it wasn't possible for the Terps to miss, they built leads of 7-0, 16-8, and finally 39-17. It was still early, though, and (unlike a team based 8 miles from Durham) Duke doesn't give up. Duke closed to within 8 before Juan Dixon hit a three for Maryland's 49-38 halftime lead.

The second half was exciting. Duke closed, Maryland would answer. Duke would get a little closer, then Maryland would pull away again. Finally, Duke took a lead at something like 73-72, and they traded the lead. Eventually, though, you could tell the Duke players were confident, and there was a sense of worry to the Maryland players, and Duke iced the game on the foul line for an incredible 95-84 comeback. Three times, Maryland had double digit leads on Duke, and Duke has come back to win. The atmosphere in the Duke section was electric.

The officiating pissed off the Maryland fans. Three more fouls were called on Maryland! They even dared to call palming on Maryland's point guard! Call the Lone Gunmen, it must be a conspiracy.

I was famished after the game, but at midnight not much is open. Denny's it was. Oh well.

I slept quite late on Sunday. Turns out I had received a panic call at 4AM Sunday morning from Julio that he couldn't post any articles to DBR. We had so much traffic in March, that the month-end traffic processing used all our disk space. Getting the system restored was quite an effort. Eventually, I headed over to Mall of America to meet some fellow DBR readers. We made dinner plans, D'Amico Cucina, where I had venison, scallop risotto, and carpacio. Excellent food, even better company. (Also at the restaurant were some luminaries like Bill Russell, John Thompson, and George Raveling.)

Monday was the big day. I couldn't sleep Sunday night, I was excited. I arranged to meet Shari for lunch at a grill in Mall of America, and then went to see the movie "Enemy at the Gates." Not a bad movie, and it got me in the mood for the game.

Duke had a pep rally at 4PM at the Radisson (the team hotel) which was OK. Typical pep rally stuff. I met up with my DBR friends there, and we carpooled over to the Metrodome well before game time, simply because we'd rather hang out at the dome than at a hotel.

We walked around the dome just to see what was there, and to scout out locations to purchase tee shirts. The number I needed to buy after the game depended on the results. A lot more if we were to win, but if we lost, they'd be a lot cheaper.

70 minutes before game time, we found our seats and Arizona was already out on the court shooting. Shane Battier joined them about 10 minutes later. I went to visit some undergrads I know in the student section, they were a bit more confident than I was.

I felt the key to the game was containing Loren Woods, since he could eat us up inside. Got that one wrong, he ate us up and it wasn't the key...

Excitement built up as the dome began to fill. Clearly, 85% of the dome was for Arizona (Lute Olson is from the area, and his wife's death this year is an emotional story.) We didn't expect the Maryland fans to root for Duke, they were still clearly very bitter about blowing the 22 point lead on Saturday.

Arizona started off a bit better than Duke, building a five point lead early as they got the ball in to Woods. They were hitting their shots and getting rebounds. Gradually the tide turned and Duke took a lead late in the first half that they would not relinquish.

The officiating in the first half was very loose. 11 fouls were called on both teams (I think it was 4 on Arizona and 7 on Duke, but those numbers may be off by one), they were letting physical play by both teams go. In the second half, they started blowing the whistle a lot more, both teams were in the bonus with 12 minutes to play, and Arizona reached the double bonus with more than 8.

Duke put on a run when Mike Dunleavy hit three threes on three possessions, opening up an 11 point lead. Arizona kept fighting back, but were never able to get closer than two points.

Final was 82-72, Duke was the deserving winner. (Then again, you'd expect me to say that.) Key to the game was Jason Gardner and Gilbert Arenas of Arizona's combined 6 for 28 shooting, and the hot hand of Mike Dunleavy.

I ended up buying ten tee shirts for various people. Bloody expensive, $27 each.

Worth it, though, because they say: