Yum

After I found out UK had indeed gotten the number one seed in the NCAA tournament and would be playing in Louisville, I starting trolling around for tickets. I found out I could some lower arena seats at a reasonable price. I talked to Josh and he was all for it. Jonathan had a mid-term in one of his classes and couldn't go. I bought two tickets and got a hotel room outside of Louisville on I-64 and Josh agreed to meet me there.

I had no trouble getting there. Josh met me after work at the hotel and we headed out. There was a Zaxby's about a mile away so we decided to get food from there. It was OK but it wasn't up to the usual Zaxby's quality. The chicken strips were smaller than usual. We ate as we drove to the Yum Center where the game would be played. We ran into a little traffic on the way there but nothing terrible.

I had scouted out a parking lot but upon arriving, we found it would be 20 to park. One block further away (at the Louisville Slugger baseball stadium) it was only 10.00 so we parked there. We had plenty of time so we walked around. We went down to the Ohio river shore and then walked to 4th Street Live. Josh had visited that area several years ago on a school trip. He was heartbroken to find a place in the food court where he'd gotten good breadsticks was gone. As we exited, we could see dark clouds and some lighting. The began to really pick up so we ran for the Yum Center.

The Yum Center is the new basketball arena in downtown Louisville where the Louisville Cardinals play. I wanted to see how this new place looked. As we got close there was a huge crowd trying to get in and beat the storm. They only had a few doors to come in to. We managed to squeeze in seconds before a downpour started. It was still jampacked inside. There was one escalator and two sets of stairs to get up which created another bottleneck. We finally got up to the seating level. It's a pretty nice new looking stadium but honestly I wasn't very impressed. I am biased but I like at Rupp how you actually are inside while waiting in line to have your ticket scanned. There are also are a lot more lines to get in there.

The seats were excellent. The stadium was full of Blue of course with a few Western fans sprinkled around. UK jumped out to a 10 point lead then let Western catch up. They didn't play really well but finally generated a run to go up by 19 at the half. Kentucky roared out to 30 point advantage but let up several in the last 5 minutes to win by 15. They still looked very good though. We decided to stay and watch part of the Iowa State-Connecticut game. I was really concerned about UConn because I thought they had the talent to hang with UK. My fears were unfounded. They looked terrible and as if they didn't care at all. They got down 20 in the fist half.

We left with a few minutes to go in the first half. We had no problems getting back to our car and no problems getting out and back to the hotel. We stopped and got a Frosty at Wendy's just like old times. I watched ISU finish off UConn. Josh drove back to Lexington and I went to bed. We had a thorougly enjoyable time.