It’s been a minute or two (9 years) since I attended a Joel Osteen Night of Hope event in the pristine arena in downtown Sacramento, but I remember it well.

Duke University Women’s Basketball is the #3 seed in the chalk heavy bracket of loaded teams playing on Friday.

On Saturday, there are four more teams with one BIG surprise !

Virginia needed double overtime to win a game in front of 14, 332 screaming Iowa Hawkeye fans to become the first team to advance from the First Four to the Sweet 16.

7 teams and fan bases that absolutely felt they were heading to the Capitol city of California and one awesome surprise.

At 2,646 miles from our home, I am thinking that it is the arena that sits in the lower 48 states that is the furthest from our 🏠???? It turns out that Seattle is 80 miles further and the same for Portland, Oregon.

LSU just broke the All-Time scoring record for most games in triple figures by doing it for the 17th time in the second round versus Texas Tech.

Both LSU and UCLA were part of the 3-6 start by our beloved Lady Blue Devils, and in both cases, we were overmatched. On the flip side of that, Baylor University defeated us in the season opener over in Paris, France 🇫🇷 by 6 points and we won the rematch on Sunday, 69 – 43.

Quick math says that’s a 32-point improvement from the first time around.

We were in the building in Las Vegas when UCLA edged us in late November

Quick math part 2: If we are 32 points better now than in November = we would edge UCLA by 2 points ‼️and advance to the Final Four in Phoenix the following weekend..

The next game after UCLA took place at Cameron Indoor against LSU. We jumped out to a 14 – 1 lead before 92-63 in the other direction. Still, the 29-point turnaround falls inside of the 32-point improvement, so once again, we are Golden !

Seriously though, the odds of finding away past LSU and UCLA in back to back games on the other side of the Country is slim to none but just take a look at what the University of Virginia just accomplished and one can find hope !

The Lady Cavaliers defeated a fellow #10 seed in Arizona State, then upset #7 Georgia and stunned #2 Iowa at Iowa to get to Northern California.

The only thing standing 🧍‍♂️between / protecting me from using our tickets to the game is that we are set to host Pulaski County High School in a softball doubleheader, and commitment is a real thing for me.

With that said, when we chased the Lady Devils around the globe 🌎 back in our November to Remember, we went to special places like Paris, France 🇫🇷, Vegas and even watched them play a game at The Greenbriar Resort in West Virginia. Back then, we weren’t sure what our 3-5 team would turn into, but now we know!

26 – 8 minus 3-5 = 23 -3 or 23-2 since the LSU loss.

For those who want to take a shot at the fact Duke ” only ” plays in the ACC, I would point out that our league has FIVE of the Sweet 16 as Louisville, Notre Dame and North Carolina are still alive in addition to Duke and UVA. They just get to play down in Texas, which is only halfway across the country.

It’s been a great experience with Kira Lawson coaching up our Blue Devils for the past few years, and no matter what happens out in No Cal, we will have Sunday to hold onto.

Besides, it’s not like it’s going to rain out our softball games on Friday afternoon.