Saturday, March 23, 2019

Three Beautiful Things 03/22/19: Ducks Win, Ducks Win, Early Morning Corgis

1.  I loved watching the resurgent Oregon Ducks defeat the Wisconsin Badgers this afternoon in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. I had a great time multi-texting, going back and forth between Byrdman in Coeur d'Alene, Bones in Tigard, Sharann in Scottsdale, and Linda in Eugene. The game was tied at half time at 25. During the first half, I texted out that I thought if Oregon could start hitting a few more shots they'd win this game because their defense was bothering Wisconsin. Turns out I was right. Paul White scored 14 second half points, Louis the King heated up, Payton Pritchard continued to score key hoops, and Kenny Wooten owned the pain on defense, helping limit Wisconsin's All-American, Ethan Happ, to 12 points and blocking four shots, dunking on the other end after one of his blocks. The Ducks outscored the Badgers 47-29 in the second half and won this contest, 72-54. On Sunday, the Ducks play another surging squad, California-Irvine, who, after beating Kansas State today, have now won 17 straight games.

2. A little while after the men's game, Linda, Bones, Sharann and I hooked up again and watched the University of Oregon women methodically crush Portland State, 78-40. The Ducks hadn't played for nearly two weeks. Coach Kelly Graves gave them a week away from basketball after the Pac-12 tournament to rest and give nagging injuries some time to heal.  Early on, I thought the Ducks looked a little rusty. As the game progressed, the Ducks shook off the rust, started to feel at home again both in their offense and on defense, and started piling up the points and the stops. Satou Sabally scored 21 points and snared 16 rebounds to lead the Ducks. Next up on Sunday? Indiana.

3.  Maggie regularly wakes up anywhere between 3-4 a.m. and jumps off the bed. It triggers a debate in my head. Should I or shouldn't I get up, too? Should I feed the dogs this early in the morning? Well, I've learned that if I just let Maggie wander around at this hour, she often moves her bowels in the house. Charly pretty much does whatever Maggie does, except the soiling part, so the dogs win my inward debate. I lift Charly off the bed, place her gently on the floor, and I feed them and let them out. This morning, at around 4, I decided not to go back to bed and so, on the one hand, I completed my morning routine before 6 o'clock breakfast at Sam's, but, on the the hand, I ran out of energy around 8 o'clock, made sure everything was turned off and put away in the kitchen, and went to bed early before all the basketball games were finished. Charly and Maggie and I all went right to sleep after a pretty good day.

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