Just the words bring tears to my eyes. The song that has come to define college basketball is also one of the most talked about aspects of the tournament. I have to admit, I try to watch all of the championship game every year, but I make sure I see OSM. Last night’s was okay, but not classic. Someday they are going to come out with a DVD of all the OSMs and I am going to have to have it. Do you have a favorite? I really don’t, b/c the year the Hogs won OSM was fairly lame. I bought the single a couple of weeks ago and the song has been stuck in my head since.

As for the game, it was a great game. I feel bad for the Memphis players, but you have to hit your free throws. Someone said they missed 7 of 8 down the stretch. If that is true, then they have no one to blame but themselves. But KU won it as much as MU lost it. They hit shots in the last 3 minutes, made two key steals, and played solid D. While MU’s missed FT helped, KU played well enough to win. But honestly, neither team played their best. Not sure if that was b/c of defense or nerves. KU shot horribly (Bill Walton HORRRRIBLE) and looked out of sync all night. Memphis didn’t look much better. But the game was entertaining b/c they played hard. So congrats KU, enjoy. And Bill Self, you might as well take the $$$$ and run. You may not win another championship at OSU, but that kind of money is unreal. It may surprise some that I would say to make a decision based on money, but coaching is different from any other profession b/c of the number of people watching & thinking they know as much or more as you. Now, if he loves the program, the atmosphere, etc.. then stay. But if it’s not everything that you thought a top 5 program should be, then you better go to Stillwater. Or stay at KU till Lute does retire and take the AZ job.

Changing lanes, I am on a fast from Diet Coke. Our church is going through Downpour, and I asked our people to give something up for the eight weeks of the series. After praying about it, I felt like God was calling me to give up DC. Every time I crave a DC, which is often, it reminds me to pray for myself and my fellow churchmembers who are going through the series. In some ways, this has been harder than any of my 40 day fasts. Like a person who smokes, there are times of the day that I want a DC so bad. Certain restaurants trigger the craving, certain foods, and certain times. For instance, one of the more enjoyable times of my day is in the evening after dinner to pop a DC and enjoy. God has been good though, the headaches have been minimal. And the study has been good.

On what does my faith rest? My own intellect and reasoning? My education? What I have been taught by my parents and the environment they provided? If that is what my faith rests on, then it is very limited. But my faith does not rest on anything of my own. My faith (and all the XN faith) rests on an Infinite God who is both Inerrant and Infallible. My faith rests on His Inerrant Word that is also Infallible.

God is infinite, without beginning or end, with power, knowledge, and ability that is unlimited. God cannot have a beginning, or He could not, by definition, be God. When Moses said, “Lord, who are you?”, God answered him by saying. “I AM.” That literally means, “I Am that I am.” The Hebrew word is very interesting. It can also be translated, “I have been who I have been” and “I shall be who I shall be.” In its most literal sense, it reads, “I is the ising One.” In other words, God wanted Moses to know He is/was/will be the One who is/was/will be. He is infinite. Yes, the more traditional word is Eternal, but I used infinite to get you to think, and because it fits with the other two (I don’t know how Adrian did it all those years, it’s difficult).

God is also Inerrant, as is His God-breathed Word. He is without mixture of error as is the Bible. Many deny this, but all they are doing is trying to make themselves god. If He were not inerrant, he would not be God. But beyond that, He is Infallible. It is not enough to say God has no error, He is not capable of error. That is infallible. He is infallible as God the Father; He is infallible as The Word made Flesh, God the Son; and He is infallible as teacher, comforter, encourager, the Holy Spirit.

Every XN should understand this: It is God who gives understanding & wisdom. You can have an IQ off the charts and be completely dumb about God. You may have read the Bible many times and studied it yourself, but if you don’t have the Holy Spirit inside you, you are incapable of knowing God. It is God who is Author of your life (God the Father), Enactor of your salvation(God the Son), and Revealer of truth (God the Spirit). Everything comes from Him. That is great comfort to me (and all believers) because I can know God just as intimately as even the most knowledgeable person. What a great God! The deeper one gets into XNTY, the more organized one sees that God is & how well He has thought everything out.

After Easter. Hmmnn. It’s kind of a depressing thing, like the day after Christmas. All last week I could say, “Happy Easter!” to people and they would smile and say, “Thank you.” It was exciting to look forward to celebrating the rez. But now it’s over. I wonder what the disciples felt the day after the resurrection? Or better yet, the day after the ascension? Did they wake up after the amazing day before kinda melancholy? Easter was awesome, but now, not only is it a Monday, but it’s the day after Easter. At least it was sunny today. And I still had the “afterglow” of a great Resurrection Sunday, thanking God all day for the blessing of yesterday.

On an altogether different subject, my brackets are trashed. In one set of brackets (yes, I had two), I have 12 of the remaining 16, but 2 Final Four teams out. Thank you Pitt and Georgetown! So much for the “vaunted Big East.” In my other bracket, the one I had time to edit and think about more, I have 13 of my 16, and Kansas, UNC, and UCLA remain.

There are 3 things you can root for in March madness, other than your team(s). You can root for your brackets, your conference, or “Cinderella”. Each can be equally fulfilling, and surely one of those can keep your interest. Which raises the question: Do you root for a hated rival (Kentucky, Texas) if they are still in it and your team isn’t? For me, the answer is easy. If it’s the longhorns, absolutely not. I would never degrade myself to rooting for them. I’m better than that. But if it’s Kentucky, or another SEC team, yes, I could see myself rooting for them. Although it’s hard to root for Kentucky b/c they have won so much, and I like underdogs. But if they were playing a Big 10 team or someone I didn’t like, sure.

It’s also fun to root for your brackets. Why are brackets important? Well, I am sure ego is one reason. The pure pride of being able to say you were right. But I look at my brackets as a way to evaluate my basketball IQ. It helps me know how well I am “up on” the game and how well I have evaluated match-ups. That’s not important to anyone else, but b/c of my love for college basketball, it’s important to me. I want to think I still know the game, even though I can’t play it. I do my brackets more for my personal joy rather than anything else. It doesn’t give me great joy to tell someone I am smarter than them because I picked the right team. It does, however, give me great joy to have a good knowledge of the game and be able to tell which team will win. For instance, I took great personal joy in being able to realistically look at the Razorbacks region, analyze it, and know why they would beat IU and why they would lose to UNC by more than twenty. I knew that match-up wise, the Razorbacks would be outclassed at the point, and would not be able to even come close to Carolina’s speed. Carolina plays at a different level, and it is going to take a team with a GREAT PG as well as defensive excellence to beat them. And Gary Irvin is barely a good PG, definitely not very good or great. Sorry, Gary, don’t mean to be rude, but you should have transferred to a smaller conference. You just aren’t SEC (or ACC) material.

Finally, it’s fun to root for your conference. And against other conferences. For instance, it was fun to watch Florida win the last couple of years b/c of the way they played. They had a team-first attitude, played with joy, and played the way you should play. So it was fun rooting for the SEC. Of course it’s fun to root against other conferences, like the Big 10. The only way I would ever root for a Big 10 team is if they were playing Texas. Sorry, I just hate the B10. In all sports. And while I love the SEC, I like Carolina better, so I will be rooting for them. As for the SEC, Tennessee is all we have left, and I just don’t care for Bruce Pearl. Why? It’s the divorce thing. I hold coaches to a high standard, and his divorce bothers me. I wish I knew more of the reasons behind that so I could know if he tried as hard at his marriage as he did at coaching. He is a great guy, and likable. I like the fact that he goes to Pat Summit’s games and cheers for them. But the SI article, his comments after last year’s SEC tourney, and his attitude just rubs me the wrong way.

So there is still a lot of the NCAA tourney left, and there are still lots of stories to root for. And, Happy Day After Easter, everyone!