first, basketball.

I only watched half of the UNC-Michigan State game Saturday night (it’s hard to get into a game when nobody else is there screaming at the TV with you … particularly if there IS someone there watching you with mild confusion at your heretofore unseen passion for a team you never root for), but I saw yesterday that the Tar Heels made it to the championship game, slated for tonight against Illinois.

Now, I’m a die-hard, lifetime fan of Duke University … had Duke just coughed up about $10k/year in financial aid, I would today have an undergraduate degree from there. I’ve never regretted that I instead went to GW, but I still hold a deep-seeded love for the university in my heart.

So it’s a bit counterintuitive that, given the rivalry between Duke and UNC, particularly in basketball, that I’d be rooting for the Chapel Hill team, right? I remember when my mom and I visited Durham my senior year of high school, we went to eat breakfast on (football) game day — we had no idea it was the UNC/Duke football game that day — and the restaurant very nearly literally had an invisible line down the middle, with navy blue on one side, baby blue on the other. There was almost no mixing of colors. It was insane.

Still, since Duke (bless their hearts) was eliminated earlier in the tournament, I can’t help but hope that, if not Duke, at least their *rivals*, their *neighbors* should win the tournament.

SO … GO TAR HEELS!