The Trade of the Century

What's the most lopsided trade in the history of mankind? The Babe for $100,000? Elway for Mark Hermann, Chris Hinton, and Ron Solt? How about 828,800 square miles for $11,250,000? Well earlier today, I pulled off a trade that will be remembered by me for the rest of my life.

Believe it or not, it doesn't involve cards... but it does involve sports. Today, I traded a $15 breakfast, a $4 bottle of water, and a $3.50 soft pretzel for a ticket to the first round of the NCAA tournament. My friend...I'll call her SB (that's her nickname... just in case some of my students are reading this or by some chance our boss is reading this) scored the tickets from her father and offered to take me. I felt bad that I was going to freeload off of their family, so I offered to pay for all of her food. Luckily for me, she's a lightweight. Anyways... it turned out to be an amazing day for basketball.

The first game was 4th seeded Vanderbilt vs. the 13th seeded Murray St. When I first found out we were watching these two teams on Monday, I was pretty bummed. It's not often you hear about Murray St. In fact, I didn't even know they made the tournament. However, by the end of the game... my voice was gone from cheering for the Racers. It wasn't the greatest game in the world (don't get me wrong, it wasn't terrible either... just nothing special except for the fact that a #13 seed was giving the #4 seed a run for their money. Anyways, the game was full of sloppy play... tons of missed free throws... and no crazy dunks or shots... except for the last play of the game. That's the play that made this trade memorable.

With 12 seconds left, Murray St. had a one point lead... until they fouled Jermaine Beal of Vanderbilt, which put him on the line. He quickly nailed both free throws, which surprised us... because both teams stunk at the line.

Murray St. quickly brought the ball across the court and one of the top scorers (B.J. Jenkins) threw up a crazy off balanced 3 point shot (at least that's how I remembered it) with 7 seconds left... and missed. Luckily they grabbed the offensive board and called a time out with 4 seconds remaining.

Before I get to the last shot, you should know who was supporting who. SB was cheering for Vanderbilt, because she chose them in her bracket. I was rooting for the underdog, because I LOVE UNDERDOGS! Well during the time out, we decided to make things a little more interesting. We put tomorrow's lunch on the line.

Now back to the game... with 4 seconds left, Murray St. inbounded the ball and as you've probably heard already... Danero Thomas hit the shot of his lifetime... a fade-away jumpshot that hit nothing but net. Game over... Murray State moves on to play against Butler (who dominated UTEP in the 2nd game - it was close the 1st half, but a slow start for UTEP killed them)

So not only do I get free lunch tomorrow... I also got a ticket to one of the most exciting and memorable games I've ever attended. Thanks SB, you're an awesome friend!