Little Rock: Welcome to the Alltel Arena
Little Rock, Arkansas -- Welcome to the Alltel Arena for the Friday/Sunday games involving No. 1 seed in the South, Memphis vs. UT Arlington; Miami vs. St. Mary's; Mississippi State vs. Orgeon; and Texas vs. Austin Peay.
We flew into Memphis (for old times sake) and drove the two hours west on I-40 to arrive at Alltel a bit late (some radar trouble coming out of Boston). Pretty uneventful ride, but I'm relatively sure that Jesus loves me. And that truckers in Arkansas think the right lane is THEIR lane.
We're in the midst of open practices here with Austin Peay just finishing up (they followed St. Mary's). Miami goes at 1:30 local time, Texas at 2:15, Miss. State at 4:25, Memphis at 5:10, oregon at 5:55 and UTA at 6:40. A smattering of fans have entered the arena for the practices and the media throng is growing steadily in the media work room, where we're watching the finish of Xavier and Georgia.
A highlight quote from the St. Mary's presser after the jump. . .
Saint Mary's freshman Patrick Mills (an Australia native) on how big the Tournament is in his homeland:
"To be honest I had no idea what the NCAA Tournament was until a couple years ago when Saint Mary's actually mad ethe tournament. So I'm still kind of learning the rules and regulations of what happens in the tournament. I don't understand why there's so many teams in tournaments, you know, right across the country, but, you know, I'm just going along with the ride."
. . . We'll try not to interfere with the live-blogging going on from sites aorund the country, but if something interesting happens or if one of the teams puts on a particularly wild open practice display, we'll get back with you.
