Well, it has become obvious that I picked the wrong pepband to be in, as the Women’s BBall team just beat the 2 seed Kansas State to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. As I recall, all of the women’s events (that have pepbands—volleyball, hockey, basketball) have now seen post-season play. Contrast this to the men’s basketball team, with our 10th in the Big Ten ranking.

Maybe it’s a good thing I did BB Band because I’d be too busy with trips with all of the WAB events.

As many of you know, the U of M’s spring break is this week. I thought I’d be able to take some time off and relax, but so far it has been pretty hectic with work. I was originally only scheduled for both Sunday’s of Spring Break, but I’ve ended up working on Tuesday-Friday. At least I’ve been working at some different stores so it’s not so boring.

The Gopher Basketball Banquet was on Monday of this week. We got to the hotel (it was at the Hilton in downtown) and played for a while (30-60 minutes?). Then sat down and ate dinner. The meal was really good (I haven’t had steak in ages!) and the company was even better—being able to talk to band people that I hadn’t seen in a little while.

Then we had to wait through all of the talks and speeches. Monson got up and talked a bit about each player and then let the Seniors say whatever they wanted. On the whole it took a quite a while and was mostly boring since I don’t know any of the players on a personal level. There were certain interesting parts because I guess the Basketball Player’s have a sense of humor as well. There were the jokes about people’s sexuality (although in a nice fashion, especially since one of the one of the gay-joke targets is now engaged). There was talk of “putting three people in a box and seeing who would come out”… a sort of who’s the best competition mind game. I think it would have been a lot funnier if I knew about the inside jokes ahead of time.

Michael Bauer spoke last (since he was the “best” senior). He got very emotional, especially when talking about how he almost lost his father and his brother during his college career. It was very touching (and honestly it was close to bringing tears to my eyes). Monson must have been apprehensive about letting him talk after the “incident” in Indianapolis at the Pep Fest in which Micheal quoted his brother as saying, “Beat the F— out of Wisconsin.”

The evening concluded with a rendition of the rouser, likely the last time I will play it this school year! Only 5 more months until Spat Camp!