Zach Dotsey

What a great night, and there are so many things that were great about this game.

I’ve been amped about the Carolina at Duke game since yesterday.  Going into it, I knew that Duke should win the game handily, and that it could be a blowout, but I figured we wouldn’t be that lucky.  I thought Carolina would hang around for a bit.  In reality, Carolina scored the first single point then Duke killed them from there.

• Michael Mercer, my brother-in-law and UNC fan, told me he was giving me two Duke wins over Carolina for my birthday.  It was a nice touch for him to make the margin of victory on this one the same as the age I just turned: 32.
• The worst loss Roy Williams has ever had was 33.  So close!
• I said beforehand that if Duke beat the largest margin of victory in the series (37, by Carolina many, many years ago) that I’d shave my face.  I thought it was going to happen, but it did not.
• Duke scored more in the first half (53) than Carolina scored the entire game.  That means Duke could have not scored at all in the second half and still get the win.  Think about how crazy that is.
• In the first half, Brian Zoubek had more rebounds by himself than the entire Tar Heel team.
• This was Carolina’s worst loss since 2002 (to Maryland) and the fewest points scored in a game since 2003 (to Duke).
• This was the worst loss by a defending NCAA champion since 1990.
• Duke set a school record for home wins in a season with 17.  All but one of those was by double digits, and the one that wasn’t was an out of conference game.
• Duke tied Maryland for the ACC regular season title but is the #1 seed in the ACC Tournament next week.
• Carolina has secured a #10 seed for the ACC Tournament, their lowest ever.
• Duke is being discussed as being the probable fourth #1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.  It helps that Kansas State lost today.
• It was Senior Night for Jon Scheyer, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas.  Coach K was emotional during the Senior Day celebrations, which they showed before the game.
• The Presbyterian fan who was kicked out of a Carolina game by Roy Williams for mild heckling was in attendance.

So it was a good night, as you can see.

We started the day going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  Actually, the day started earlier than that.  Bruce kept getting up and going downstairs to bother Karen and Milly woke up and cried a bunch around 1:00.  Maybe she’s teething again, because she was very fussy today.  She didn’t like being put down for naps, and when she did nap it wasn’t for long.  She wasn’t a fan of going to sleep tonight either, although she seemed to go out (or at least quiet down) pretty soon after I shut her door.

Anyway, Cracker Barrel.  We went to Wal-Mart after that to pick up a few things and Karen took off when we got home.  Amanda actually napped on the couch, which is very much a rarity.  I went out to pick up some chicken for our enchilada dinner tonight (we forgot to get it at Wally World) and to drop off the recycling.  I took a huge amount of paper recycling that had built up over a few years.  There were some slips of paper at the bottom of it that had been used for Balderdash, and I can’t remember the last time we played that.

Around 5:00 Amanda started getting things ready for tonight.  Blake and Stephanie Konny came over around 6:30 for dinner.  Since there was time, we went ahead and introduced them to Puerto Rico.  It didn’t go well for me and Amanda.  Blake won, followed by Stephanie then Amanda then me.  That’s okay though, because the game came on before we finished and I’ll admit I was a little distracted.  (Not that that’s why I lost.)  I did DVR the game, and I plan on watching it again.  It really was fun.

Zach Dotsey

Tonight Amanda and I watched Duke take on the Golden Hurricanes of Tulsa.  Coach K scheduled the game with the projected top team in Conference USA (though it hasn’t panned out that way for them) to give his team a late-season look at the type of game they can expect early in the NCAA tournament.  It was actually a very close game in the first half but Duke stepped it up in the second and won by 18 points.  The freshmen got a lot of burn too.  Andre Dawkins was in a good bit, it seemed, though I’m not sure if he scored.  He kept trying though, which is good.  He started off the year shooting very well, but he’s been through some tough, personal issues.  Coach K said recently that Dre is about to break out, so hopefully it’ll come at tourney time.  Zoubek had a double-double and if he keeps playing like he has the past few games there’s no telling how far Duke can go.

You know, I just realized that I forgot to mention that Carolina played Florida State and lost by 10, though the game wasn’t even as close as that makes it sound.  They’re now tied for last in the ACC with NC State.  Some polls show the Heels as being ahead since they beat the Wolfpack twice, but some have the Pack ahead because they have a better overall record.

Amanda spent a good portion of the day picking up, cleaning and vacuuming around the house in preparation of the arrival of the Lambeth clan.  Ben, Jessica, Graelyn and Mack got here around a quarter past nine.  Mack and Harvey spent all night playing out in the yard while Bruce hung out inside where Amanda and I introduced Ben and Jessica to Puerto Rico.  Amanda won.  I scored seven less than she did and Ben and Jessica tied with one point less than me, though Ben won the tiebreaker since he had more money.

We got to hang out with Graelyn a bit before that though.  She’s five months old now and so cute.  It’s funny how light she is, and yet she’s a sizable baby for her age.  I’m just so used to holding Milly, you know.  She interacted with me some and gave me a few smiles.

Harvey won’t leave his infected paw alone.  He was able to lick it even with his cone on, so I ended up electrical taping his bandage and gauze onto his foot and Amanda went by Dineen Animal Hospital to get a larger cone.  It’s so funny how he bumps into everything when he’s got it on.

I woke up a little late this morning.  Usually I’ll hear Milly making noises if I sleep in some, but she slept in too.  My morning was a mad scramble which wasn’t helped by my baby’s unwillingness to drink much of her formula.  It’s funny- she’ll drink hardly any formula but she’ll eat all of her oatmeal.  She wolfs that stuff down these days.

It was very cold today.  I even heard reports of a little bit of snow being sighted (though none accumulated at all), but it’s supposed to warm up tomorrow.

Zach Dotsey

For some reason, Duke seems to have trouble playing in away games.  They tend to shoot poorly and the other teams shoot better than their average.  The difference between Duke playing at home in Cameron Indoor Stadium versus them playing at an opponent’s court is just mind boggling.  That was true tonight as well,for one half.

The Blue Devils traveled down to Miami and scored 25 points in the first half to Miami’s 37.   Then something changed.  Coach K must have pushed some buttons or something because Duke came out on a tear and scored 57 points in the second half while Miami matched their first half score.  The final was 81-74.  Brian Zoubek had another nice game and Kyle Singler lead the Blue Devils in points.  Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer were very quiet in the first half but came alive in the second.  One other nice thing is that everyone got to play tonight.  The Plumlee brothers see the court regularly, but Andre Dawkins came in and made a three and Ryan Kelly got some minutes.  While he didn’t score, he had some nice assists to Zoubek down low.

Milly was in a good mood today.  She was pretty easy to watch and interacted with Amanda and me a lot.  She was also very talkative and it was easy to make her laugh.  I pointed out to Amanda today that I think he face is starting to thin out and she’s starting to look older.  Older for a baby anyway.

One thing she needs to work on is finishing her bottle.  Now that she’s so mobile she gets distracted easily when we’re feeding her and she likes to forget the bottle and go do different things.  We’ve been spoiled by the fact that Milly has been able to bottle-feed herself for months now, but we’re having to hold her to try to get her to drink at least half of her bottle.  The leftovers get mixed with oatmeal or rice cereal and baby food, and she does eat most of that so it doesn’t all go to waste.

Zach Dotsey

I woke up around 7:00 this morning.  Milly wasn’t fussing, but she was awake and I didn’t know what time it was, so I got on up.  Milly and I talked to Uncle Roy for a bit, and when I heard my parents I took Milly to see them.  Since Mom got in late last night she didn’t get to see Milly.  She didn’t get to see anyone, come to think of it.  I think I ended up going to sleep about 15 minutes before she and my dad got back to the house.

As I noticed last night, there was snow on the ground, probably a couple inches.  Amanda and I took Milly out to check it out, but she wasn’t really into it.  I got a few pictures and a little bit of video, but nothing monumental.

We mostly just hung around for a good part of the day.  Milly had her first taste of eggs, which she didn’t seem to mind too much.  I tried to install a printer on Uncle Roy’s laptop and drew and colored a picture of one of Jackson’s toys in Photoshop.  I’d shown him a little bit about how to use it yesterday, which he seemed to enjoy.  I wish they’d come out with a new MarioPaint, because the basics I learned playing with that were the basis for a lot of what I taught myself with Photoshop.

Duke hosted Maryland today.  Not only was it Coach K’s 1oooth game, and not only was it his birthday, but it was also a game to determine the #1 spot in the ACC.  The Terps were second but if they won they’d take Duke’s #1 spot.

The game started and Duke rebounded a Maryland attempt then Jon Scheyer made a three.  Then the power went out.  It came back on, but the satellite was taking forever to sync back up.  Then the power went out again.  Not only did it interrupt my game, but both laptops that were in use (mine, with Amanda on it, and Uncle Roy on his) died.  Dad and Josh were doing some bathroom work (they ended up pretty much completely stripping out the bathroom at the top of the stairs) and had to cut the power for some reason while they were draining the water.  Or something like that.

Once the power came back on the satellite took forever to reboot again, so I watched some of the game online until the TV was ready.

It was a great game.  Duke won by 21 and Brian Zoubek had his best game ever with 16 points and 17 rebounds!  Dude was a beast today.

In other basketball news, Carolina beat NC State in a game to determine who would reside in the cellar of the ACC.  Carolina, sadly, was able to stop their losing streak.  I watched UK beat Tennessee just a little bit ago.  It was tight until the end of the game when I guess the Wildcats decided they were tired of trading buckets.

We played some MarioKart for a bit then Amanda, Milly and I left just before 5:00.  The trip was pretty uneventful aside from the fact that I drove (even though I drove up as well, and we usually trade off duties) and Milly cried most of the last 15 miles or so of the trip.  She seemed to just be tired of being in the car.  She was also distracted while eating and didn’t go to bed too easily.

Amanda and I watched The Office and 30 Rock before she went to bed, then I watched an episode of Smallville.  The next one features the Justice Society.  I’d have gone ahead and watched it, but it’s a two hour one I think, and I remembered that Kentucky and Tennessee were playing.

The Revills, by the way, got two new dogs today.  They were just going to get one but they decided they liked two of them.  Lucy and Maxine are their names.  As you may recall, they recently lost two dogs.

Zach Dotsey

Retribution for ‘99 and ‘04!  Okay, not quite.  The Huskies still owe the Blue Devils two NCAA championships, but still, Duke beat Connecticut pretty handily this evening.  It was an ugly brawl, Singler was in foul trouble and only made two field goals, the three main big men (Miles Plumlee, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas) all fouled out, Duke shot 29%, officiating was horrendous and my team blew an 18 point lead to win by nine, but the game made a statement.  People have talked about how soft and unathletic Duke is, especially in comparison to a team like UConn, but Duke killed them on defense and rebounding.  It was a statement game and a really good win.  This game also makes Duke 5-4 all time versus UConn.

Last night Michael and I watched a movie called Baghead.  I really kind of liked it.  After we watched it I slept downstairs last night because I was coughing and didn’t want to disturb my two favorite girls.

Amanda and I met with Sarah (who actually went to Duke and helped in the athletic department I believe) and Mike Erreca for lunch at Arnold’s.  Sarah, who is a friend of Amanda’s from high school, brought her parents along and Karen (who works with Sarah’s mom) showed up too.

I met Mike and Sarah (funny, I just realized they’re not the first Mike and Sarah we know, and in fact you could say they’re one of three if you include a past relationship) at their wedding, but I really enjoyed talking to them.  I think Mike and I have a similar sense of humor.

Everyone loved Milly, of course.  She was passed around the table a couple of times and behaved herself pretty well for the most part.

After we finished and hung out a bit, talking, Amanda, Milly and I were invited over to the Barbee house (Sarah’s parents) to help them get rid of some of their leftover Thanksgiving dessert.  Amy Farmer called as we were leaving Arnold’s to say that she was heading back home, but she was nearby and stopped off in the parking lot to see us.  Then, on the way to the Barbees’, Amanda saw Brad Failor, another old friend of hers, outside of his house, so we turned around and talked to him, his wife and his brother for a few minutes.

I really liked the Barbee house.  It’s very open and uses a lot of wood.  While helping them get rid of their desserts, I dipped my finger into some cranberry sauce and let Milly have a taste.  She become like unto a crack addict for it.  I mean she really liked the stuff.

Once we got back to the Mercer house Amanda and Karen took off to do some shopping in Jacksonville.  Michael and Jenn were already there and I think Phil was in the shop.  Milly took a very short nap before I gave her her 4:00 feeding, including some rice cereal.  It was the first time that I think I came close to making it properly.  Before it was way too runny.  It was a little on the thick side this time, but she ate it all up after her bottle.

Milly and I watched the Duke-UConn game, but she started getting fussy so I put her down for a nap a few minutes before Michael and Jenn got back.  She didn’t stay down long, but she was in a good mood when I got her back up.  Amanda and Karen got home just a little before the game ended and we all ate pizza for dinner.

A little later Amanda, Karen, Michael Jenn and I played Scattergories.  I thought I stood a good chance of winning, but Karen beat me by two point.  The rest of the order of winning continued in age order, from oldest to youngest.

Zach Dotsey

Today being Amanda’s day off, she gladly got Milly up this morning when she woke up.  Milly was pretty cheery, as she usually is in the morning.

After doing a bit of work I headed out to run a couple errands, including picking up some jumper cables.  I was planning on driving to Seth Holloman’s place this afternoon, but to do that I had to go ahead and get my car running.  I hadn’t started it in quite a while, and when my car lies dormant it somehow uses up its battery charge.  Anyway, I was going to get a medium grade cable, but they only had low and high grade cables.  I didn’t want to spend too much so I got a lower grade one.  Didn’t do the trick, of course, so I called Seth and asked if he’d pick me up.

Amanda was going to take Milly by her work and dressed her all in pink for the occasion.  Pink shirt, pink pants, pink socks, pink jacket and pink bow.  They left at about 3:00 and Seth and his dad came to pick me up at about 3:45.  We stopped to pick up Randal Kennedy, another Duke fan, then, after a quick stop at BoJangle’s and a close call that nearly gave Randal a heart attack, we continued on to Durham where we met up with Seth’s aunt and uncle (I believe).

I met Tedder, another guy from the Duke board, and his wife.  Seth and I also talked to another guy, Paul, who is the one who is providing us with tickets to next week’s football game.  After a bit Seth and I went back to our seats.

We had some really sweet seats, I must say.  In Cameron there are two levels- on the floor and the upper level.  We were right at the very front of the upper level, which probably wasn’t more than 15-20 feet up from the hardwood.  Aside from being at midcourt we couldn’t have asked for much better seats.

This was the first basketball event I’ve been to at Duke since 1995 or 1996, so I was pumped to be there.  I wasn’t disappointed either.  The Countdown to Craziness is Duke’s (hopefully annual) basketball season kickoff.  This had some skits and games put on by the students prior to the Countdown, then they showed some pretty funny videos by the team.

After that Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley were introduced as guest coaches for the Blue-White scrimmage and the players were all introduced to their own individually-picked music.  Brian Zoubek came out dancing to Ice Ice Baby and Job Scheyer came out to All These Things That I’ve Done by The Killers.  It was the “I got soul but I’m not a soldier” part.

The Blue-White scrimmage featured two halves, or games, really, with two different teams.  In the first one it was the presumed starters versus the rest of the team, and it was sort of a blowout.  They switched things up in the second, and even though Seth’s uncle and I both said we thought the white team would win, it ended up going to the second team.  It came down to the wire though, with Nolan Smith hitting two free throws to end a tie with less than a second left in the game.

After the scrimmage was a dunk contest.  Really, Olek Czyz should have won with his 360 between the legs tomahawk dunk, but they called the round a tie between him and Andre Dawkins and ended up giving them both the win after another round.  Nolan Smith unveiled an old-school Johnny Dawkins (no relation to Andre) jersey during the dunk contest.

The Plumlee brothers looked pretty good, Andre Dawkins looked good, of course Scheyer and Singler looked good, but I’ll give most improved to Nolan Smith.  Transfer Seth Curry looked pretty good after he got into his groove, but unfortunately we’ll have to wait until next year to see him in in-game action.

Here’s a pretty good video recap of the event.  you can actually see me and Seth towards the top left corner in all of the shots that are on the left side of the court that show the upper section.  I’m the last guy in the corner with a blue shirt on, and you can see me clapping a lot of the time.  Seth is to my left (camera right).

I got home… I don’t know, sometime after midnight.  Maybe close to 1:00?  Amanda wrote a good night message to me from Milly on the mirror in the bathroom, which was really sweet.

Zach Dotsey

Don Senick and Laurel Hughes were wedded this morning.  Amanda and I picked Billy Supplee up and headed downtown for it.  One thing I decided to do was to look at Don as Laurel was walking down the aisle.  What I remember best was that he just shook his head as if in amazement.

The ceremony was only about half an hour and was capped off by communion, which I thought was a nice touch.  Afterwards they held a reception at Roudabush.  There was a little dancing and quite a bit of milling about.  Amanda and I sat at what seemed to be the “Tribute” table, in that everyone there either work at or was married to someone who worked at Tribute Properties.

They had a pretty good spread of food and cupcakes with sugar surfboards on them instead of cake.  We took off around 12:30.

We dropped Billy back off at his apartment then went on home.  Duke played Maryland at noon and I had set the DVR, so I was able to watch the whole thing.  A rarity in cases where I’m missing the game, I happened not to have looked for updates to the score online, which I’m glad I did.  It allowed me to enjoy the game that much more.

What can really be said about it?  Duke murdered, I mean absolutely chopped, stabbed, mutilated, castrated, humiliated,  beat them down, and left the Terps for dead.  They had one guy, Landon Milbourne, score 19 points.  The next highest scorer was Dave Neal with 5.  Duke had all the starters out somewhere under the nine minute mark and still won by 41 points.  Brian Zoubek had a nice game and was a point and a rebound shy of a double-double.  Literally everyone on Duke’s team got to play, including Steve Johnson.  I really like the the freshmen got to play.  Even Olek Czyz, the new Martynas Pocius, logged almost double-digit minutes.  Miles Plumlee showed some good defense, but just needs to go stronger to the basket.  Elliot Williams kept attacking the basket aggressively, which was great to see.

The final score was 85-44.  It was the worst Maryland loss since the ’60’s and the worst loss ever under coach Gary Williams.  The best part of the game to me was on one possession Gerald Henderson was heading down the court then lobbed the ball towards the goal for Kyle Singler to finish with a dunk.  Then on the very next possession, Singler stole the ball and tossed it up court to Jon Scheyer who then touch passed it across the court to Nolan Smith who then tossed it behind himself to Gerald Henderson to lay it in.  What an awesome sequence and great show of teamwork!  Cameron was rocking after that and Brian Zoubek grabbed Henderson, who was just grinning from ear to ear, and gave him a big bear hug.  Everybody was just pumped!  (In the video clip above, it’s the part from about 1:40 to 2:00.)

Another fun thing about the game is how Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez, a notorious trash talker, had claimed before the game that Cameron Indoor Stadium was his house.  Gary Williams sat Vasquez for the rest of the game after being whistled for an intentional foul (since the game was well out of hand at that point anyway) after making four points on 2-10 shooting.  The Cameron Crazies were shouting, “Nuestra casa!”

On a sadder basketball note, Kay Yow, former NC State Women’s Basketball coach, lost her struggle with cancer today.  From a USA Today article:

In 38 years of college coaching, 34 at N.C. State, Yow had a 737-344 record, four Atlantic Coast Conference titles, 20 NCAA bids and a 1998 Final Four appearance. She coached the U.S. women to the 1988 Olympic title and was a member of the Naismith and the Women’s Basketball halls of fame.

Basketball games all over the country, including the Duke-Maryland game, held a moment of silence for her.  The one at Duke also honored Bill Werber, who died at the age of 100 on Thursday.  He was Duke’s first All-American basketball player and also played baseball with Babe Ruth.

After the game I tried to doze off but Amanda made me get up and go shopping with her.  We needed to go get a birthday present for Michael so we went to Independence Mall, Circuit City and Best Buy.  Circuit City’s liquidation prices still aren’t very competitive, in my opinion.  One of the things Michael wanted was Wall-E on Blu-Ray.  It was priced higher at Circuit City but ended up being $1 cheaper with the discount.  The TVs and other higher ticket items, cameras and the like, still have a way to go before they’re competitive, I think.

Zach Dotsey