Thoughts From Quebec City...

[billyjack]

1 - Spent long weekend in Quebec City with my wife and kids. We're leaving tomorrow morning for the 7-hour drive back, but luckily it's a beautiful ride and is supposed to get warmer.

2 - With limited internet while enjoying the Winter Carnival, my son updated me on the Friars game. 40-16 late first, then later saw that they won in a tight finish. Big W and a big relief. Unfortunately, the ScoutFriars board is troll central, plus several trolls are bored UConn fans apparently, so i didn't get an idea of how PC built their lead. The boxscore showed that Bullock and Dunn excelled but not sure how everything else happened.

3 - The mascot of Quebec's Winter Carnival is a cool snowman guy, who stands 7 feet tall and supposedly weighs 400 pounds. Would love to have him play alongside Bentil and control the paint. The mascot's name is "Bonhomme". Cool cat. He commented positively on my son's Providence hat.

Bonhomme, 7-feet, 400-lbs, would own the low post:


4 - For whatever reason, we couldn't get the NBA All Star stuff on TV at our hotel. We couldn't get ESPN at all. But on Saturday afternoon we did get the Xavier at Butler game. How cool is that?

5 - The coldest weather i ever experienced was 20 years ago in Poughkeepsie NY, when i ran for 12 seconds from a restaurant to my car in 22-below-zero-F temperatures. This weekend we experienced 17-below-F temps as we walked around the carnival grounds. My nostril hairs froze instantly. Difficult to describe the sensation of such extreme cold for such a long period of time. We ducked into the various tent structures to keep warm, though most had 1730's style French Canadian music blasting. The "Carnavale" was great, with sledding and a lot of games for the kids, and all. I definitely recommend it and definitely recommend visiting Quebec City any time of year. Restaurants are outstanding, women are easy in the eyes and have that great accent, and the people are really nice and patient as we try to speak passable French.

6 - Sunday afternoon we drove north to an amazing waterfall named the Chutes de Montmorency, probably 200+ feet high. Probably was still 8-below with a wind off the St Lawrence. We were sitting in the heated viewing building, and the father of a family siiting next to us had a St Louis Blues hat and a Drake Bulldogs sweatshirt. So i had to strike up a conversation with him, they were from Des Moines, and for a couple of minutes we discussed Drake, Providence, Keno Davis, the Missouri Valley Conference, Creighton (which he called an outstanding team), etc. Pretty cool, and not just because i found someone that spoke English.

7 - Butler is in much better shape than people might think. No bad losses, no bad home losses especially, solid wins over teams in the 50 to 80 range like at Cincinnati and vs Temple, plus that huge neutral court win vs Purdue. Toss in the win vs Rick Barnes.

8 - PC is in good shape. Injuries are always part of the discussion, and Bentil was hurt for the last 30 minutes vs DePaul. Seton Hall is in good shape too. I still say that we will get 5 bids.

9 - Bring back the Nordiques...!!!

stock photo in summertime:

[Bill Marsh]

Made the same trip at the same time of year in what had been a similarly mild winter, Billy Jack. Same experience at Winter Carnival as the weather turned brutally cold once we got there. Drove back in a blizzard from Bellows Falls, VT to CT to find 20 inches of snow on the ground and couldn't even get in my driveway.

With regard to the Friars, they were unbelievably good in the first half due primarily to a zone defense which tied the Hoyas up in knots. They couldn't penetrate it, resulting in a lot of outside shots, often taken under duress, sometimes with time running out. They were out of position for rebounds and added to that problem with TOs. There's ultras a lot of fast breaks for easy buckets for the Friars, including open 3's. The Friars were making their shots and the Hoyas were not.

The second half was completely different. The Friars went to a man defense with which the Hoyas had little problem and the Friars shooting had cooled off due in no small part to the lack of fast breaks and open. Looks they had gotten in the first half. By the 4th quarter, it was a ball game. The Friars went for 7-8 minutes without making a basket, scoring only on FTs. Hoyas cutie to a point but couldn't get over the top as the Friars made a lot of clutch FTs. Late in the game,momentum was all with the Housa and if the game had gone a few minutes longer, Georgetown would probably have won. It was a tale of 2 halves.

Big win for the Friars!

[stever20]

yeah PC to me despite their metrics(which are terrible)- totally safe to me.

Seton Hall is in good shape- need 1 more good win to lock it up.... plus not lose to St John's or DePaul.