It is right at 24 hours until we tip-off with the Wildcats and I'm starting to get nervous. You'd think this was a football game. Time to fly the Buckeye flag tomorrow morning. But like many Buckeyes, I don't normally do that for basketball. Wonder why? So what is the proper etiquette here. Do I stay with the superstition and not break the old -You Never Change A Good Thing Rule - you know, like never washing your jock strap in high school as long as you were winning. Or do I throw caution to the wind, and flaunt it out there, telling all the hillbillies in Western Ohio that no, We Do Not Want To Be Kentucky! I mean half of us at one time or another left that state, my ancestors included, and we all know what we think of states with team colors of blue!

There are two reasons I want to get this right and take all the marbles. One, I want to see the look of horror on the faces of the Basketball Bluebloods, the Vitales, the Barkleys, and Company if we were to mow down Kentucky, maybe North Carolina, and then possibly Duke. I mean that would be like striking out Ruth, Gehrig, and Reggie Jackson in the ninth inning of the the seventh game of the World Series!

But more than that, I want to see Thad Matta get the respect he so deserves and I think has been denied so far by the national media. Rob Oiler has a nice column about this man, and what he has done in today's Dispatch. Check out Matta Builds A Winner.