Days 294-297: March 21-24, 2013

Thursday was the official beginning of March  Madness and a return to Bluebird for Bar Review. We actually did not spend much time at Bar Review because we spent so much time watching the games at Brothers, which has much better televisions for basketball watching. The first day of basketball was great, but not as great as when IU finally takes the court!

On Friday, not only did IU open their NCAA Tournament run with an easy win over James Madison, but kickball started up again at Bryan Park. The weather was fairly nice, and even though it was a little chilly it felt warm on the field with the sun out. It was a bit of a rusty day for our team, but was good to get back out there and freshen up. I will likely need to work on getting my kickball skills back in peak shape for this summer, since kickball is huge in D.C. After kickball, we also stopped by the law school musical, which was great again this year and had some good songs, great jokes, and prominently featured some traditional Indiana candystripe pants.

The weather on Saturday was so beautiful that I had to get outside, avoiding staying locked up in the library by taking a walk around to take some photos and then going out for a run in the nice warm air. One would think that spring was finally on its way, until you look at tomorrow's photo of the day below. After an amazingly beautiful day, we were pounded by a surprise snowstorm that coated the ground in no time at all. At this point in time, I am definitely ready for spring to just come around, but I do love snow so I was not that disappointed after all. And additionally, Indiana won its second round game on Sunday to move on to a return trip to the Sweet 16 in Washington, D.C. Now we are moving into the depths of the tournament where we will be battle tested on the quest for the sixth banner. I will be returning to D.C. this summer, and hopefully IU can enjoy it for me next weekend by coming back to Bloomington with a Final Four berth in hand!

Days 291-293: March 18-20, 2013

In case anyone has not tried them yet, I should say that Birthday Cake Oreos are the best invention ever. They came out as a limited edition and it took me forever to find one, and then as soon as I got them they were off the shelves. This year they surprisingly came back so of course I snatched them up. There is nothing more I can really say—just try them. They are amazing.

So I don't really play that many video games anymore, but when I do it is all about Lego games. My first Lego experience, Lego Star Wars, was what I spent during the entire exam season in Fall of 2008. Lego Harry Potter 1-4 got me through my post-undergraduate summer and job search. And now I have Lego Harry Potter 5-7, Lego Star Wars III, and Lego Lord of the Rings thanks to Lexis points and Amazon Prime. It is safe to say I will not need a new video game for at least one to two years.

The NCAA Tournament is finally here and will begin as Indiana takes on James Madison in the first round! On the final day before the tournament, my bracket is complete and ready to go. It is no surprise who I have picked to win it all, though I should note that I picked them to do it against Ohio State. This is relevant because the only time I have ever gotten a champion right before, I picked Florida (my favorite team until I came to IU) to beat Ohio State (I also do not pick my favorite teams every year—that was also the only other time I have ever done that). That year, Florida entered the season as the preseason number one, but slipped a bit towards the end of the season, to around #5 (sound a bit like IU?), whereas Ohio State went on a late run and entered as the undisputed favorite to win it all (sound somewhat like Louisville this year?). So I am hoping the similarities in these two tournaments can play it out in my title game pick, and for the second time ever have me pick a correct national championship game, and winner, so that Indiana can add another banner to my mug up there–and to the wall in Assembly Hall.

Days 288-290: March 15-17, 2013

This weekend began with a fun-filled St. Patrick's Day weekend trip to Chicago. We started the afternoon in Bloomington watching IU win its first round Big Ten Tournament game against Illinois, and then left to join our fellow Hoosiers in Chi-Town, were we ran into this spectacular IU banner decorating the Chicago streets. The first night was a relaxing night enjoying our favorite Giordano's deep dish pizza, then getting a few drinks at a bar after walking past some pre-prohibition era liquor store museums.

On our second day in Chicago, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day, starting off with a trip to the Chicago River which was dyed green in honor of the annual Dying of the River tradition. We then went up to Lincoln Park to watch the Hoosiers sadly lose to Wisconsin, which while unknown at the time, was actually a blessing in disguise as it ended up keeping us out of the gauntlet that would become the NCAA Midwest Regional. We then spent the afternoon and evening celebrating St. Patrick's Day at a variety of locales, and ended the night by getting driven back to our hotel by a crazy cabbie that was blasting The Final Countdown and Eye of the Tiger with crazy neon lights. It was one entertaining St. Patrick's Day.

On Sunday, we finished off our trip by stopping at the most amazing breakfast place ever, President Obama's favorite, Valois in Hyde Park. I had my usual scrambled eggs with bacon, toast, and the best hashed browns I've ever had. We then left Chicago to head back to Bloomington, where we would sadly have to put an end to the Spring Break holiday, and get ready to head back to classes on the final grind before exam season begins.

Days 281-283: March 8-10, 2013

I spent a little bit of time Friday at the Union trying to get a head start on my journal work for the week so that I could enjoy more of the break that is spring break coming up. I tried to get into the secret room of the Union, but it was closed yet again! This is a mysterious secret room in the Union that is apparently amazing to study in and has some of the greatest views of campus, but it is always closed when I try to stop by. It is hard to find because it is in a hidden spot inaccessible to elevators and also does not show up on the Marauder's Map. It is basically the Union's Room of Requirement, so I guess I will have to do my best Harry Potter impression and only show up when I absolutely need to use it in order to get in.

With Bloomington becoming a spring break ghost town, I decided to take advantage of the quiet atmosphere to do some spring cleaning, which became my annual clean everything in the apartment time. I spent most of the day as I went well beyond my normal cleaning regimen to get everything in order for the remainder of the semester heading into the long summer break. Afterwards, it was nice to enjoy the fresh and clean apartment! Although, I was quite disappointed to learn that it was apparently daylight savings time today? Did not see that one coming. As I was ready to go to sleep at 2:30 and then get an early start to the day, I noticed while setting my alarm that it was 3:30 and was taken by surprise. Oops. I will have to say that is the first time I have ever been surprised by DST. But, the surprise factor did allow me to almost ignore it, and it ended up being my best ever observance of my least favorite DST of the two, which usually sets me back and messes up my whole Sunday.

On Sunday I was able to enjoy the freshly cleaned apartment to watch the Hoosiers take on Michigan in the regular season finale. Mumble the Basketball Penguin even got a new shirt (courtesy of David) to celebrate the Hoosiers' trip to Ann Arbor to take down the Wolverines. Indiana won in dramatic last-second fashion, coming back from a weak first half to win the outright Big Ten Regular Season Championship! One banner down and two more to go this season. Now it's time to head to Chicago for the Big Ten Tournament! Go Hoosiers!

Day 275: March 2, 2013

Tonight was my last home game at Assembly Hall this year. I will not see the Hoosiers play in the building until next year, and I will not get to go back inside the building until I get to play at Assembly Hall where I will be in the best seats in the house—on the floor! Tonight's game was a dreadfully painful game to watch, with the first three-pointer not sinking until one minute left, and 52 total fouls called on both teams. Fortunately it was still an easy win, and hopefully this is the last time I'll see only FIVE banners at Assembly Hall!

Days 268-272: February 23-27, 2013

Saturday was our I-Jiggles Global Party, which I attended after The Vegas Bombers extended our win streak to three games by defeating a team on an eight-game winning streak in epic fashion. We are really starting to come together and make our playoff run! Global Party was a lot of fun as well. I contributed to the European representation with some Abbey Ale (I think from the Netherlands?) and my favorite Belhaven Scottish Ale. The Belhaven was my favorite beer in Scotland and is still my favorite beer of all time. It is like a lighter and creamier tasting Guinness, and while the widget-loaded draft cans are fantastic, nothing compares to the true Belhaven drawn off the tap in the Scottish heartland.

Sunday closed off a very busy four-day weekend with a quiet day at home combined with a bit of work to catch up for the school week. I ended the evening by partaking in one of the rare events of the year where I cook my own dinner. Here we have some pork chops and mixed vegetables accompanied by a glass of Oliver Creekbend Traminette, Indiana's signature wine. All was delicious, proving it to be another rare occasion: the occasion where I cook foods that are not corn on the cob and they all taste good.

My dinner Monday was not quite as wholesome as my home-cooked Sunday meal (don't worry, I had a real dinner later on), but I stopped by Potbelly to pick up a vanilla malt and sugar cookie to keep me going as I finished my high school math homework, also known as our second problem set for Corporate Finance. I'm still not sure if I really remember what math means, but I keep saying that one day I hope to keep track of my personal finances like a corporation does, so it should eventually come in handy. I used to get these sugar cookies all the time in D.C., and although the ones in Bloomington are usually a little over-baked, this one was quite delicious.

Tuesday was a sad sad day. After watching an amazing moot court semifinal argument, we went over to Nick's to catch the Indiana game, where the Hoosiers disappointed and were upset by the Golden Gophers of Minnesota. We still have a great team, but we really have to stop it with these letdown games, particularly the ones in which Cody Zeller decides to play like a little kid. With Watford in foul trouble and Zeller getting beat up down low by the Gophers (getting beat up by a Gopher is as sad as it sounds), things were not going to end well, even with Indiana fighting back from their countless mistakes to keep things close until the end. Better get back to practice, because with only three games left, we are going to have to win at least two and maybe all three to win the Big Ten and secure that #1 overall tournament seed and midwest regional placement!

On Wednesday we all stopped at Noodles for lunch, where Megan was surprised by the new drink machine they added this semester. While I did think these machines were super cool when they first came out, I am starting to not like them so much because they have way too many choices, and take forever to use even when you know what your doing and using them quickly. They take even longer to use when people can't figure out how to work them, and can create some huge lines at lunch. But they are certainly designed in a fun and interesting way, which reminded Megan of her favorite drink machines at McDonalds—"It's like a factory for drinks!" (Actual quote.)

Day 261: February 16, 2013

Happy Birthday Mom! Today was the game we had general admission tickets for, against heated in-state rival Purdue. We took the opportunity to line up two hours before tip-off to get our prime lower level seats. Given that this game also coincided with my mom's birthday, I decided to put my artistic skills to use and make a sign to celebrate at the game. Here I am with my sign and rocking the candystripes next to our five banners. Our Hoosiers made it a great birthday celebration by rolling over Purdue start to finish, closing the game out 83-55, and thoroughly dominating both games in the season series. Next week we have a huge game coming up in East Lansing....Go Hoosiers!

Days 254-260: February 9-15, 2013

It's official: I have finally found a new and replacement pair of basketball shoes. After almost nine years playing in the old and battle-worn Shox Status', I found a very similar style replacement pair of Shox. I picked these up in the fall and have been skeptical about the change, electing instead to wear these with my candystripes. After giving them another go tonight, I decided to retire them from outdoor use for good (after only four outdoor wears) and keep them as the replacement basketball shoes. It is amazingly easier to keep your footing on shoes that are not nine years old. Tonight they helped me put on a fun performance more in line with my games of old: 3+ steals, 8-10 deflections, lockdown man defense giving up just 2 points in 3 games, and scoring from inside, mid-range, and on the fast break. It was fun to run the floor and play hard again, the only thing missing from my game today was the three-point shot. Hopefully with more hours on the floor I will be able to keep up the status quo, and if so, I might have a shot to avoid feeling like an old law student playing on Assembly Hall and put up a decent game instead.

Following my own personal basketball resurgence, Indiana had a huge road game on Sunday to follow up the upset loss at Illinois. Again, I am kicking myself for making Illinois my preseason pick to take IU's #1 ranking—I did not expect the Butler and Wisconsin losses, but we got #1 back just in time to make my prediction come through. Fortunately, the trio of Oladipo, Zeller, and Watford were HUGE and the defense tightened up to hold a solid lead in a hostile environment, giving Indiana their first road win against a ranked opponent in Tom Crean's tenure. This win was especially huge following the "mulligan" the rest of the top-5 teams gave us this week, and we should be able to maintain a solid position as long as we keep winning. My new IUBB GameDay mug got off to a good start in its first use, and will hopefully be enjoying many more victories in the weeks to come!

This was an interesting promotion I stumbled across. They are giving out giant paper bags when you buy something at Hallmark, and then if you bring the bag back in two weeks you get 20% off everything you can fit inside. Unfortunately, I do not really ever have to go to Hallmark enough to actually buy enough to utilize this promotion, but it does seem like it would almost be fun enough to participate just to stuff up the bag like it was a shopping spree or something. If you did enjoy collecting various greeting cards, you could sure fit a huge amount of them in this bag to get your sale!

The Moot Court bracket is officially up and Moot Court Madness begins in approximately one week. Unlike March Madness, where I hope Indiana makes it all the way to the end of the bracket, I am hoping to put up my best D.C. Sports impression and go one-and-done. I am going to attempt to have fun doing it however, as I have set up Mike's Moot Court Scavenger Hunt, where I make my best attempt to sneak in as many famous quotes and/or phrases into my argument while still maintaining a proper and professional argument style. This is my attempt at making additional work more entertaining and productive (and sadly may actually improve my overall performance). Hopefully this does not put the Karma Gods against me and give me an unwanted victory, as Karma is already stacking the deck against me by setting me up for a second-round argument on my birthday, one year after I had to finish an LRW memo on my birthday, should I pull through with the "double-upset" victory (that is referring to an upset for both sides, because I am sure neither of the two competitors in this match will want me to win).

Girl Scout Cookies! I came across these at College Mall this week and had to pick up a couple boxes since I haven't had my own in forever. Naturally, I picked up my two favorites, the Trefoils (old fashioned shortbread), and the #1 Cookies of All Time: Thin Mints. I finally broke into them and they were as good as ever, and even better than I remembered (particularly the Thin Mints). Thanks Girl Scouts for your awesome cookies! They are the perfect way to end the week and head into another long weekend.

On Thursday night it was back to Nick's for the first repeat performance in Bar Review history. Because Bar Review has been lackluster lately, with the bar selection waning as we have made it through most of Bloomington's marquee establishments, and others are being saved for Spring when we can best make use of their outdoor amenities, Nick's was selected for its second go-round in an attempt to reinvigorate the brand. After the recently renamed Team Avalon completed their first match as The Vegas Bombers, it was off to Nick's to celebrate the unique "Valentine's Day Style Bar Review," which basically means, Thursday Night at Nick's playing Have You Met Tim?

On Friday I begun work on my poster to bring to the Purdue game tomorrow, our general admission game of the season. We will get to line up before the game tomorrow to get good seats, and I am going to make an exciting poster to display from my prime Crimson Guard vantage point. What will it be? You will have to watch at 2:00 PM on ESPN2 to find out! And additionally, this photo finally completes the first ever week-long version of Connecting the Dots' "Photos of the Day[s]!"

Days 251-253: February 6-8, 2013

Another week in the books as Wednesday rolls to a close and first-weekend begins. Stopped by TIS in the afternoon to pick up a few things and took a look at the mural again now that the construction in the parking lot is finally gone. Looks like the artist was thinking ahead and left plenty of room for a sixth banner. Hopefully I will still be in Bloomington to see the murals completion! After TIS I went by the HPER to freshen up my basketball skills a bit. This time I actually remembered to practice my free throws after playing, and finished a surprising 14 for 25. That is a marked improvement, considering I was the player that once missed 12 consecutive free throws in a game. (The good news being I became a 50-60% free throw shooter following that game. The bad news being 50% is not a good free throw percentage.) And I started even stronger than I finished, missing my last four after hitting six in a row (which has to be a personal record as I don't think I have ever hit more than three consecutive before).

Thursday was a beautiful day out, reaching the mid-60s and making it a good day to go out for a run. Afterwards, it was over to Yogi's for bar review and to watch the Hoosiers defend their fresh #1 ranking. Sadly, it was a brief defense as Cody Zeller decided the last 0.9 seconds of the game would be a great time to take a defensive series off and chill out pretending to set screens for Illinois. Fortunately though, numbers 2, 3, and 5 also lost this week, so if we are able to pull out a win in what is now a must-win game at Columbus on Sunday, we can consider this week a mulligan and hopefully not drop too far in the national rankings and the Big Ten standings.

When I was at TIS on Wednesday I picked up this cool new five banner coffee mug. This should make for a fun Gameday mug going forward, and just like the mural, they have left a spot to fill in a sixth banner. Unfortunately, that spot happens to also be where the handle is, so I suppose when the time comes the mug will have to turn into its own version of a "ceramic mason jar." Now that is how to be practical and resourceful.

Days 247-250: February 2-5, 2013

Saturday night was the most intense matchup of college basketball (and probably the most significant sporting event in general) that I had ever been to. ESPN College GameDay was in town for the #1 vs. #3 Indiana-Michigan matchup at Assembly Hall. The game was amazing from start to finish, and the crowd matched the intensity level and left Assembly Hall shaking all forty minutes. This year, I was on hand to watch Indiana defeat the #1 team in the country, never giving up the lead to Michigan, and reclaiming the #1 spot all for themselves. It was amazing to finally be a part of such a huge game that your team is able to follow through on the expectations and pull of a strong victory. I hope to have many more of these games at Assembly Hall, and hopefully we will bring this kind of performance to the NCAA Tournament come March.

Sunday was another beautiful day in Bloomington as the ground remained blanketed by the additional snow we continued to accumulate over the weekend. Here is one of our Indiana University clocks that you can find scattered around campus. One evening in November, while running by one of these clocks with This is Indiana playing through my headphones, I heard the clock ringing on the hour. The song had just reached the "One banner . . . six banner knocking on your door" segment, as I realized that the clock I was passing was ringing on the hour to 6:00 PM. As you can imagine, that certainly pumped me up to finish my run strong. Tonight there was no basketball though, as it was Super Bowl Sunday. Aside from an interesting power outage at halftime, the game was surprisingly good and went down to the very last possession. It was a big win for the Harbaugh-Crean family, hopefully not their last championship of the year! It also earned Stafford County its first Super Bowl Champion in Torrey Smith, and earned me the distinction of being able to say I beat a Super Bowl Champion in high school football. No need to worry that I only logged three seconds of playing time, still counts. Boom.

Monday I had my first homework assignment of the semester due in Corporate Finance, which accounted for three amazing achievements: (1) I got to say I was "doing my homework" rather than "studying" for the first time since high school; (2) I got to do math problems on an old-fashioned sheet of notebook paper where I was able to "show my work," even circling my answers just like high school calculus, and then staple together to turn in; and (3) most importantly, I was able to use my old tricked out "Oh Six" TI-84 graphing calculator! Back in '06 when we were graduating it was the cool thing to say "Oh What? Oh Six!" so one of my friends had a bunch of bumper stickers made up. I ended up getting custom blue and orange North Stafford colored plates to put on my calculator, and used one of my stickers on the back to make my awesome school spirited NSHS calculator. And now I get to use that calculator in law school. Boom. (Again.)

On Tuesday I finally turned in my final moot court brief for the spring competition, freshly bound from FedEx Office. Working on the brief the second time around was amazingly easier and more fun. Most likely because after realizing how little it mattered compared to the overall process, it ended up being much simpler and less stressful than the first time around. I was then able to devote more attention to adding fun anecdotes throughout such as help and/or HELP. You probably don't know what that means, and you should be thankful that you never will, because after a couple weeks I never will need to anymore either. Furthermore, I will now be accepting suggestions for popular quotes and/or phrases that I will attempt to incorporate into my arguments in an entertaining and creative fashion. Feel free to submit candidates for the final list via email or comment, as I will compile a final version to hand out to those in attendance so that they can play their own version of "Moot Court Scavenger Hunt" to see how many I am capable of completing.

Days 244-245: January 30-31, 2013

It was interesting seeing a Purdue flag flying from Nick's this afternoon. I'm not sure if that's just up there for the Purdue game? I would hope so—I would like to think IU is above being pranked by lowly athletic programs such as Purdue. In any way, we certainly showed it to Purdue as Indiana THROTTLED the Boilermakers on their home court, 97-60. It was the worst home loss in Purdue history—37 points—exceeding the prior record set by none other than your Indiana Hoosiers! It's wonderful when you break your own records, especially when doing so at the hands of Purdue. Also, just for the record, I know I am new to this "rivalry" (if you can even call it that, it seems almost even more one-sided than Virginia Tech-Virginia), but Purdue fans, how can you do that "Boiler Up" thing (not giving it the dignity of calling it a chant, because it sounds like a car muffler) and expect not to be embarrassed? Fortunately, Michigan also followed suit with their own easy victory, setting up this Saturday's epic and intense #1 vs. #3 ESPN College Game Day matchup at Assembly Hall.  Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoosiers! Oh, and Purdue, it's "Banner" Up. Or should I say "Banners," because there are five of them. For your enjoyment, I will show a graphic of each of Purdue's banners below:*











(If you can't see any, feel free to keep refreshing the page until one shows up.)

On Thursday I finally got to see my first snowfall of the year! It was the culmination of one of the most ridiculous two-day stretches in modern weather history. As I previewed Tuesday evening, the Wednesday forecast was already quite interesting. Well, at about 1:00AM Wednesday morning, just as I was getting ready for bed, the tornado sirens started to go off. The band of powerful thunderstorms on the way were apparently capable of producing tornados, and Bloomington happened to fall into the only stretch in all of Indiana that was going to be hit by the part of the storm capable of producing a tornado warning. Fortunately, it was a pretty lackluster storm, so no need to worry about a tornado that night, only a strong downpour of rain. Later in the day, we had another strong rain, followed by a ridiculous drop in temperature from 68 all the way down to the 20s. And around dinnertime, snow showers! The entire day was basically the whole plot of the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow crammed into one season of 24. No snow accumulation on Wednesday, however, but on Thursday evening some more snow showers rolled into town. They weren't expected to lead to any accumulation, and I was in the HPER for several hours during the downfall. Well, come to my surprise, I walked out around 7:00 to find the ground covered in snow, and took today's photo on my walk back to the Henderson garage. The roads were surprisingly slick, and traffic was a mess, because the roads were never properly treated for the snow. That was definitely a surprise for Indiana, which is usually pretty spot-on in terms of weather preparation. I will give them the benefit of the doubt for this one though, because to receive an unexpected snowstorm following a 68 degree day filled with thunderstorms and tornados leaves little time to realize some treatment on the roads is necessary. The lack of proper preparation and resulting haphazard driving was almost like being back in Virginia for an entirely anticipated snowstorm.

Days 240-241: January 26-27, 2013

What better day than 10 days before the due date to begin working on moot court brief number two? I mean, it's not like I need that much time to work on it. The one (and most important) thing I learned from all the time we spent working on it last fall is how little it matters. Spend as much time on it as you want, but it sure isn't going to get you an A. In anything. But, on the bright side, it is much funner and less stressful when you actually don't care about it and do things like cite Green Bag! (See, e.g., http://bit.ly/QjCrQ1). Also, the moot court board has changed to must more positive things like Little 5, rather than brief due dates. Even though I don't think the countdown has been updated from 90 in quite a while (probably about as often as I've updated my brief). Finally, I enjoy the I-Jiggles commemoration of moot court participants in the bottom left corner of the picture. I enjoy the fact that the world is covering up the majority of the announcement, because it is symbolic of the things that are more important than moot court round two for me: all the things in the world. And THAT is global!

Disclaimer: I should add that despite my satiric attitude, moot court is very important for those who are interested in the competition, are interested in appellate advocacy, or are pursuing a career in an area of law where that form of advocacy will be relevant. But, for those who merely wanted to build public speaking/advocacy skills, strengthen an area of weakness, and for which three rounds of argument was sufficient to accomplish those goals, having to write another 30ish page brief to merely argue an additional one or two other times is not the most productive of tasks for an additional semester.

#13 Michigan State made the trip to Bloomington on Sunday to take on #8 Indiana at Assembly Hall. It was a huge top-15 Big Ten matchup I went over to Nick's with Anita to watch her Spartans take on our Hoosiers in the nationally televised Sunday afternoon game. It was odd watching an Indiana home game in Bloomington and not at Assembly Hall, but I did not have tickets to this one. It was an impressive game on both sides, neck-and-neck the entire way, with Indiana managing to hang on to its early lead throughout despite a strong effort and a huge inside presence by Michigan State. It was good to see Indiana play tough in a close game and pull out a win. That is definitely something we are going to need to keep up if we are going to compete down the stretch in the Big Ten and in the NCAA tournament. Victor Oladipo was a star as usual, and Cody Zeller managed to assert himself down the stretch, but he needs to step it up and play stronger from start to finish. Hopefully we will be able to handle another road matchup on Wednesday against Purdue, because next Saturday soon-to-be #1 ranked Michigan will be coming to town to be featured on the ESPN College GameDay Spectacular that will be a possible top-five matchup at Assembly Hall!

Day 237: January 23, 2013

Another wonderful night at Assembly Hall as 17,000+ line up to make their way into the building to see Indiana take on Penn State for a Wednesday evening matchup. While tonight's game was a little sloppy and included plenty of poor free throw shooting, it was a nice easy cruise to a 20+ point victory over lowly Penn State.  We finally got a bit of an increased performance off the bench, and hopefully have shaken off the rest of the dust we have been building up before we encounter our next big challenge this weekend against Michigan State. Tonight we had the thrilling opportunity to sit in the farthest seats back in the upper deck with our backs to the wall of the stadium. Not the best location (although, it was in Section BB, and as Charles pointed out, IUBB!), but it was a fairly casual evening for a fairly low intensity game where we had a comfortable lead out of the beginning after we opened on a 7-0 run. In other great news tonight, #1 Duke was thoroughly embarrassed by MIAMI (of Florida, in case you Ohio fans were getting too excited), losing by almost 30. I do not generally care how non-conference teams are doing, even though it may be of benefit for teams above us to lose, but I've been saying all year that Duke was vastly over-ranked after having played Louisville and Kentucky early before we realized how over-ranked either of those teams were at #2 and #3, so it is good to see someone finally give them a reality check.

Days 229-232: January 15-18, 2013

Tuesday was a sad sad day. Indiana defended its fresh #2 national ranking by promptly losing to Wisconsin at home. At home. At Assembly Hall. I did not think any team would beat Indiana at Assembly Hall this year, and they shouldn't have. While our team has plenty of flaws, most of which came to light in this game, and most of which should be fixable given more time and experience, this one is on us. While the atmosphere was of course, spectacular compared to the average college basketball environment, the night was a little weak by Assembly Hall standards. We were not going 100%, and you could tell it was a bit quieter than usual, nothing like our evening matchup against UNC but more like the second half last week against Minnesota. I think that perhaps we got a bit too complacent with our high-ranking playing an unranked team like Wisconsin, but it is important to remember that every game in the Big Ten is going to be a battle, and every team playing a top-ranked team is going to bring their best. And that's not even counting the fact that Wisconsin has had our number for years now. So, while I expect our team to continue to improve and fix their flaws before March, we have to make sure that we give them our best as fans and make Assembly Hall what it was designed to be—the most intimidating place to play basketball in the country. This one is on us. And we need to make sure that next Wednesday, when we fill the seats again, Assembly Hall is shaking from top to bottom and our team is feeding off of that insurmountable energy.

Speaking of reigniting Assembly Hall, on Wednesday I picked up my first Crimson Guard shirt. I forgot to get my free shirt last year, but this year I made sure to grab it. While I am not able to dedicate the same amount of time and passion as I may have been as an undergrad, the heart is strong as ever and I am proud to support the best student group in the country for college basketball! There's a reason why we all bleed crimson.

Thursday was another week of bar review, this time at Serendipity. While Serendipity is a great place to hang out on a quiet evening with a group of friends, it is probably not the best locale for a bar review, as there is not much standing room and the bar is rather small. Afterwards, we stopped by Atlas and played a bit of shuffleboard. Although the quality of the tables was lackluster, it was still a good time as Tim and I led a fairly dominating 5 or 6 game run on the tables.

Friday was the second day of my five-day Martin Luther King Day weekend. This is an amazing stretch of the semester, where I have three days of class, followed by a five-day weekend, followed by two days of class, and then another four-day weekend. After stopping in to do a POP office hour, and almost forgetting I had to pick up my moot court brief number, I took a stop by Kroger for some long-weekend grocery shopping, where I was happy to find this awesome giant shoe celebrating Hoosier Hysteria, Indiana basketball, and the five banners. I am not exactly sure why it is a shoe, but it is a pretty cool setup at the entrance of the Kroger. I wonder what they are going to do with the old shoe when we win a sixth banner?

Days 223-226: January 9-12, 2013

On Wednesday it was time to leave D.C. to fly back to Indianapolis to start the Spring Semester of school. I had a great time at home over break, and it was definitely too short. I realized it felt a lot shorter because the whole first week I had to spend writing the rest of my seminar paper/journal note. But it was still a fun, relaxing, and much-needed break at home where I had a chance to spend some time with the family, go down to Florida to see some more family, eat plenty of delicious food at my cousins' restaurant, eat plenty of home-cooked meals, see a few movies, and go out to some good restaurants in Virginia and D.C. Here I am waiting to board my plane (not the one in the picture) with a view of the monument and Capitol behind the plane and another plane coming in for a landing.

On the first day of classes I also turned in my journal note which I spent the first week of break finishing. Glad to finally be done with it! It is resting nicely on top of the giant box of other notes. This Thursday was a Monday schedule, with four classes, but this semester should be nicely scheduled since I only have classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and it is the exact same schedule each day.

On Friday I collected most of the rest of my books. A few more than last semester, but a slightly lighter load than Fall Semester of 1L year. I'm excited to have (hopefully) a much more structured semester with less practical or writing courses and getting back to some basic exam-style law classes, which I tend to do better in. Once moot court is quickly out of the way, I think this semester should be much more structured than last, with plenty of time to relax and enjoy the spring weather (and IU's NCAA tournament run).

Saturday I finally returned to one of my favorite places, Assembly Hall, to watch IU take on the fellow top-10 ranked Golden Gophers of Minnesota. The game started off fantastic, with IU opening a huge first-half run to go up more than 20 points and the crowd raging loud as always. The second half was very disappointing, however, as the crowd got lazy and was too quiet, and the team quickly followed with a sluggish performance that almost brought Minnesota back in the lead. Fortunately, the Hoosiers hung on before time ran out and ended up closing out an eight point victory to earn a new "signature" win. I include the quotation marks not in disrespect to the opponent, but merely due to the questionable way our team performed to close out what should have been an undisputed signature victory. But, a win is a win, so I'll take it and hope that we can maintain better consistency going forward, because this type of second-half performance will not cut it on the road in the Big Ten. This shot shows Cody Zeller receiving a pass on a wide open run to the basket before finishing off with a crowd-stirring dunk, one of the first half bright spots. Another bright spot of the afternoon was the halftime performance by the Firecrackers, a youth girls jump-roping team, which was one of the most amazing halftime shows I have ever seen.

Day 193: December 10, 2012

Today is officially the one year anniversary of the game that changed Indiana basketball's destiny, December 10, 2011, when undefeated #1 Kentucky visited the undefeated yet unranked Indiana Hoosiers. No one expected Indiana to rise from the NCAA sanction-imposed depths of college basketball back to national relevance quite so soon, but this night would change everything. We all know how it ended, Kentucky missed the front end of a double bonus with 5.6 seconds left on the clock, still up by two. Verdell Jones took the ball up court and dished it out to Christian Watford behind the arc on the left post. The rest is history, as Watford put up a shot as the buzzer blared, and the sound of the soft flush of the net never tore so loud as in the shot heard 'round Hoosier Nation.

In this amazing moment, the fans stormed the floor at Assembly Hall, at Watford joined his teammates on the scorer's table to soak in the glory of the achievement. Tom Crean had a look of stone cold seriousness in his face, as the meaning of what had transpired began to rise to his awareness. Indiana basketball was back, from the bottom of the bottom. From 6-25 to the Sweet 16 and hopefully further. This wasn't a team that pulled off an upset, this was a team that was rising to become a contender, and saw the possibilities of the future unfolding before their very eyes. This was a special moment in Bloomington, and everyone knew it. Immediately after Assembly Hall emptied, Kirkwood was flooded with people reveling in the achievement.

On a more personal note, this game was very interesting in my evolution as a Hoosier. I had season tickets to Indiana basketball from the beginning, knowing that I wanted to commit to such a spectacular fan base, the kind that I had been lacking in the past but was already excited to be a part of. However, I had lost a little bit of the fire that I once had, and especially with the pressures of school and impending finals, I needed something to really draw my attention, pull me back in, and reawaken that fire. My seats for the Kentucky game were court-level, behind the basket, bleacher seats, but I elected to give them away because I felt I needed more time to prepare for my upcoming exams. I also did not yet understand the possibilities that could await our basketball program. I do not regret this decision, because as I was handing my ticket to a friend, I specifically told him, "You know, I have a feeling we might actually pull this off now that I'm giving this ticket away." Well, we did more than pull it off.

I ended up barely getting any work done, because as I saw how close the first half was, I quickly left the library to get home in time to watch the last few minutes. I remember thinking, as Kentucky missed that second free throw, "If we play for two, we're going to lose this game, but if we take a three....oh man." Well, we got the three, and it was magical. To be extremely honest (and possibly just trying to make up for giving away the ticket), it was almost better to see it alone, at home. It would have been easy to get lost in the noise and excitement at Assembly Hall, but seeing it in the silence of a Bloomington apartment really allowed one to appreciate the gravity of the event. I remember as I erupted in celebration seeing the shot go in, it was a peculiar feeling. It was almost as if you could feel everyone in Bloomington, and the spirit of Bloomington, and the entirety of Hoosier Nation just erupting from the burdens of the years past. That explosion that took place in that single moment everywhere in Hoosier Nation was an amazing feeling, something I will never forget. That was exactly what I needed to steal my attention, just to make me look and never turn back. In that moment the fire I was missing reignited, and it is going to take a hell of a lot to put it out now. I am happy and proud to be a Hoosier, and to be a part of Hoosier Nation. This is why I'm here, and this is something that I can carry with my long after I have finished with law school, and it goes far, far beyond just being able to participate in the excitement of Indiana basketball.