And you thought I forgot!

For the first time ever, we have a tie!  Not counting the play-in games, which we don't count, there were 63 games in the tournament. Collin Challis and Dan Jackson both called 52 of them correctly, including all of the the Final Four and Finals. Impressive! The tie breaker was the total points scored in the finals.

Florida won 65-63 for a total of 128. Low scoring game. Collin was a bit more optimistic, predicting a total of 150. Dan apparently thought this game was being played in 1945 as he expected only 104 points in the final. We don't use Price Is Right rules, so Collin wins (150-128=22 < 128-104=24, almost as simple as the fancy new tariff calculation!).

Justin Yazigi right behind with 51.

Then a three-way tie at 50 among: Mark Rossi, Robert Pierce (that's my Dad!) and Don Brown. It'd be great to have a drink with you guys to celebrate! I pulled out a protractor and evidently the place that is equal driving for all of us is Ketchuptown, South Carolina. Which has nothing to do with the tomato-based condiment. It's a pun on the fact that farmers used to gather there to "catch up" on the news (not making that up because I am not capable of coming up with a pun that bad).

Collin, my friend, I hope you are ready. Because the first place prize this year is an all-expense paid weekend in Gainesville, Florida! Home of the national champion Gators! 

Gainesville is named for Army general Edmund Pendelton Gaines, who is famous for arresting Aaron Burr in 1807 on treason charges. Incorporated in 1854, Gainesville was a sleepy little wide spot in the road until 1906 when the University of Florida was re-located there. 60,000 undergraduate students eventually descended on the north Florida campus to study everything from turfgrass science to bowling industry management and technology to enology (because when you think of wine, you think Florida!).

We booked you a room at the Penny Farthing Inn, which has nine rooms only one of which is "super haunted".

So much to see in Gainesville. Literally #1 on the list is the 34th Street Wall, a retaining wall to prevent erosion on the University of Florida golf course. There's graffiti!

April 7 is Andrea's day. She respectfully asks that March Madness stay in its lane. Despite the famous name, the Final Four and Finals are always played in April although rarely as late as April 7. I can tell you exactly the last time it occurred. In Spring 2011, Andrea and I were dating and I mentioned that I may have a little hobby focused on college basketball. By March 2012, we were living together and I was dropping some pretty big hints that the amount of basketball I was about to consume with fingers poised above my laptop was beyond what any reasonable human should expect. The favorite that year? My Wildcats, led by Anthony Davis. The finals were April 7: Kentucky vs Kansas. Oh lord. 

We got through it. Andrea didn't love eating her birthday dinner at early bird special time, but tolerated it. And I wasn't expecting visitors at game time, including an eight-year old from Chile who was interested in the rules of this game that I was so fascinated with, preferably in Spanish. Kentucky won and, inspired, I wrote one of my favorite Notes posts ever long past midnight.

This time around, we took a late afternoon stroll through Longwood gardens and dined at Parc on Rittenhouse. Mrs Notes did not invite over guests (we had friends and family over on Sunday) and even joined me for the last game of the season. Everyone went to bed happy. Thanks for putting up with being a "March Madness Widow" every year, sweatheart. You are a very patient and accommodating partner. And more lovely that a field of Spring flowers.

Kelvin Sampson and I have a bit of shared history. I did a postdoc at Washington State while Sampson was the coach. WSU is in this tiny town on the Idaho border, lost in a sea of rolling wheat and lentil fields. Their sports teams are in the Pac 10, meaning that basketball teams representing UCLA, Stanford, Arizona, (etc) had to travel to Pullman once a season. Typically in the middle of winters that were brutal on a good year. One of many reasons the rest of the Pac 10 ditched the Cougs and joined the Big 10.

Back in the mid-90s, I walked by the basketball arena every evening on my way home. There was a mid-week game once against Cal, who I heard had a pretty good freshman point guard. Spontaneously, I detoured to the arena, flashed my university ID and I was in. It was long night, as the game went to three overtimes. That freshman from Cal was the difference, playing brilliantly including hitting the game winner. His name? Jason Kidd.

Sampson climbed the coaching ladder going from Washington State to Oklahoma to Indiana, where he was fired for texting recruits too vigorously. He rehabilitated himself with two assistant coaching gigs in the NBA (Bucks and Rockets) before returning to the college game at Houston in 2014. At 69, Sampson would have been the oldest coach to coach a team to the national title. Instead, he retains the dubious distinction as the best coach to never win it all (shared with Gonzaga's Mark Few).

[Editor's Note: Kelvin Sampson grew up in Laurinburg, NC, a member of the Lumbee Native American community. Sampson's father was a basketball coach but made national news when he was among a group of Lumbee people who broke up a Klan rally in nearby Maxton.]

What a bizarre game. I thought Florida would probably win. I didn't expect them to win like that.

Houston controlled the game from the jump, controlling tempo with a methodical (i.e. slow) offense and their typical suffocating defense. Florida's Walter Clayton, who had been brilliant this tourney, may have read too many of his own press clippings. He was way more interested in cementing those Steph Curry comparisons than initiating the offense. He was jacking up step-back logo 3s that were not even close. Uncharacteristic, leading to some bench time and a shocking goose egg in the first half scoring column. Little Richard provided the only offense spark for the Gators, hitting three 3s on the way to scoring half of his team's 28 first half points. Basically a disaster for the gang from Gainesville, but they found themselves only down three at the break.

The first half flew by, mainly because only four fouls were called (and only one of them on Florida). It couldn't last. The refs called everything in the second. 

Surely Florida and their excellent young coach, Todd Golden, would settle down and impose their considerable offensive will in the second stanza. Nope. More of the same and worse. Walter Clayton was still out of sorts and Houston focused their defensive attention on shutting down Will Richard. Florida picked up six fouls (!) in the first few minutes of the second half leading to the Gator bench players complaining to the refs at the edge of the court. It's virtually impossible to earn a bench technical not involving the coach in such a big game, but Florida managed it. Then Florida's Rueben Chinyelu got called for a foul and, in frustration, slammed the ball into the ground and walked away as it bounced high in the air. That's a tech every time. The Houston lead ballooned to a dozen. The Cougars appeared to be on the precipice of their first national title.

Then a funny thing happened. Florida locked down on defense. The Gators chipped away at the lead, with Clayton finally hitting a 3-pointer. Houston's last four possessions of the game all ended in turnovers. The last one was embarrassing. The clip is below if you haven't seen it.

Florida led the national title game for one minute, four seconds. The final two-point margin was the Gators' largest lead of the night.

Todd Golden is only 39. Some are saying he's the youngest coach to win a title, but that's incorrect. When Jimmy Valvano led NC State to that improbable title in 1983, he was 37 years old. He died of caricinoma a decade later, two months after giving his famous speech at the ESPY awards.

Florida's Rueben Chinyelu is Nigerian. He wears two cowrie shells braided into his hair. This is more typically done by women in his native country, as a symbol of fertility. When men display cowrie shells it is usually meant to signify wealth; indeed, cowrie shells were once used as currency in many African societies.

Coaching dominos fall. Kevin Willard did indeed take his talents to suburban Philly. Why he injected all the drama into the move is a mystery. You can take the Villanova job without crushing Maryland on the way out the door. The Terps then hired Buzz Williams and his vests away from Texas A&M. Good coach, if you like football on the hardwood. TAMU then tapped Bucky McMillan from Samford, who is the polar opposite of Buzz Williams. Get ready for offensive overdrive Aggie fans.

Between the Final Four games, they inexplicably played a live song by Jelly Roll. I like Jelly Roll well enough so I listened in. I couldn't help noticing that his drummer was wearing a red jersey. At one point, the music called for the drummer to stop playing. The camera focused on him and it was clear that he was wearing a Louisville jersey. The guy then proceeded to lick his drum stick from one end to the other. Yuck. Typical Card fan.

I usually write some about the women's tourney. Didn't have the bandwidth this year. And there wasn't much drama as all of the women's Final Four games were blowouts. Shout out to UConn, who destroyed an excellent South Carolina team in the finals. Coach Geno Auriemma with an incredible 12th title. Happy that his star, Paige Bueckers, finally got her moment in the sun. It's easy to forget that as a freshman Bueckers was the national player of the year. A torn ACL and the whole Caitlin Clark phenomenon relegated Bueckers to the shadows. She's back and ready to help lead women's basketball into what promises to be a golden age.