Three Beautiful Things 12/03/19: Back to Sacred Heart, Cocktail with Christy, An Evening of College Basketball On and Off the Court

1. Sheri, the pre-transplant nurse coordinator at Sacred Heart, called me this morning. As expected, I'm being asked to return and do my echo cardiogram again, probably in January. It seems I was not properly hydrated for my previous echo cardiogram and the transplant team wants to see the test results when I am properly hydrated.

2. I knew Christy was making a trip to CdA today and, before she left, I had invited her over for a cocktail when she returned home. She accepted and, late this afternoon, we each had an Old-Fashioned (I know now that I forgot the dashes of bitters. Blast it!).  Christy told me about her day and what lies ahead this week. I'm all for a late afternoon cocktail! It was relaxing and good way to review all that Christy experienced today.

3. One of the things I love about college basketball is I never quite know what to expect from any given game. Usually, that's a good and exciting thing. Sometimes, though, the unexpected turns out to be very disappointing.

Such was the case today.

I thought both the Michigan/Louisville and Duke/Michigan State games would be tightly contested.

They weren't.

Louisville drubbed Michigan, 58-43, with a blanketing defense that stymied the Wolverines.

Duke dominated Michigan State. The final score ended up being 87-75, but it wasn't that close. At one point in the second half, Duke held a twenty-two point lead.

After these games, I decided to watch the 30 for 30 documentary, The Last Days of Knight, a movie documenting the Coach Bob Knight's demise as the coach of Indiana University's basketball program.

It depressed me.

Knight's conduct at IU was profane, coarse, angry, intimidating, violent, and, ultimately, self-destructive. I already knew this when I started watching the film, but seeing it all over again and seeing the very dark side of the rabid loyalty of many Indiana University's basketball fans unsettled me even more now than when he coached the Hoosiers from 1971-2000.

I'll leave it that.

It was around 11:00 when I finished watching The Last Days of Knight and I wanted something else to be the last thing I saw before going to bed.

So, I watched much, but not all, of a profile of Paul Westhead, a very different basketball coach than Bob Knight. The 30 for 30 documentary looking at Coach Westhead is called The Guru of Go and chronicles the fast-paced style of basketball he coached, especially at Loyola Marymount University, and also looks at the terrible time when one of LMU's players, Hank Gathers, died on March 4, 1990 after collapsing on the basketball court in a game against the University of Portland in the WCC end of the year tournament.

I turned off the television before the film moved to its coverage of Hank Gathers' death. I'll finish it in the morning.