NCAA March Madness at Cox Arena

Over one year ago we bought our tickets for this event. I had never been to a NCAA basketball game before and thought it would be fun, which it was. We started the day off by meeting at my friends house. Since we had to wait for someone stuck in traffic, we decided to drink a beer - at 9:30 AM! Little did I know that this would be my last beer for six hours. It seems that there is no alcohol sales at NCAA events, and once inside Cox arena, we couldn't leave until after the first session of games.

From my friends house we headed to the Original Pancake House where I drank way too much coffee and ate chocolate chip pancakes - very tasty. Then we drove to SDSU just to find out that there was a bomb scare and they weren't letting any one in. So we stood around for one hour waiting. It seems some bomb sniffing dog thought it smelled something in a vendors cart - but it turned out to be nothing. Sounds like it is time for that puppy to retire. I was surprised how quickly they got everyone inside. They were checking bags but not coats. It would have been easy to bring in a gun, bomb or even a flask of whiskey, which apparently many people did - the whiskey that is, not the other two items.

Once inside we found our seats, which were off in a corner and were bench seats. That meant four games of sitting with me knees jammed into the person in front of me and no back support. We took lots of breaks during the day. As far as the games go, I really didn't care who won because I didn't fill out a bracket or bet on the games, but most of the four games were exciting. The first game was really close with Alabama winning and in the second game UCLA was ahead by 30 with 10 minutes remaining, so we exited the arena early (we had to anyways after the first session even though we had tickets for the second session).

Our goal was to find food and beer. Apparently the local eating places didn't realize that there was a tournament going on with 12,000 people looking to buy beer. We managed to get one beer each at the first stop but then when we went to a deli that sold beer they ran out after we had been in line for 15 minutes. So off to 7/11 we went. Now this was an interesting experience. There was long line and only one poor clerk. So what people were doing was drinking their beer while standing in line. Now I resisted this saying it was shoplifting, which it was, but I eventually gave in to peer pressure. It was one big party with people drinking and eating while the line slowly moved. So after about 15 minutes we paid for our beer and then stood outside in the parking lot drinking beer in front of a sign that read "No loirting or drinking alcoholic beverages". Breaking the law once more in plain sight.

We eventually walked back to the arena in time to see the second quarter of the third game. About halfway through the fourth game, which was really boring, we left to go to Trophy's to watch the Aztec's game which was being played in Salt Lake City. They were ahead by 10 points but then due to turnovers and sloppy play the Aztecs LOST to Indiana! Their season is over. All that was left to do was finish our food and go home. What a fun day it was to ditch work, and we get to do it all over again on Saturday. There are only two games on Saturday and we will plan our day differently knowing that there is no beer sales at the arena.