Our biggest road trip of 2008 is finally upon us!

This Wednesday afternoon, we point the car south… to warm and sunny Florida, just in time for spring break and a full week of sporting events in the Sunshine State. We’re breaking down the drive down into two days, and will roll into Tampa on Thursday night.

Friday at the St. Pete Times Forum we enjoy a full day of basketball, as the NCAA men’s basketball subregional goes into full swing. The day session starts at 12:30PM with two games, with the evening session underway at 7:20PM. Yes our game tickets are in hand, and we even got ‘em below face value on eBay. At the end of this post I’m breaking down our four games and my predictions.

We will be staying in Orlando at Sheraton Vistana Villages, an awesome timeshare I bought on the cheap a couple years ago. Saturday we’ll be hanging out at the resort. Yeah I used to stay on Treasure Island in the St. Pete area, but cashed out of there a while back, and it’s a real relief that I don’t have to risk going on vacation and running into the remnants of the Cheektowaga riff raff which still dogs it around those parts.

Sunday is round two of the subregionals, so back to Tampa we go. Depending on the game time, we might just drop into Buffalo Bisons training camp in Winter Haven on the way and see what’s shakin’ with Torey Lovullo and the boys.

For the next three days we switch to baseball and the Grapefruit League… Monday it’s the Cleveland Indians at Winter Haven, Tuesday we travel over to Clearwater and Brighthouse Networks Field to watch the Philadelphia Phillies, and on Wednesday it’s the Houston Astros close by in Kissimmee (playing the Tribe). All 1PM starts.

Cock a doodle doo! on Thursday morning as we leave Orlando for the 540 mile journey to Charlotte and the East Regional Sweet 16 games at Charlotte Bobcats Arena. With North Carolina in the East bracket, this is gonna be one tough ticket but we’re watching the auction sites and failing that, will try our luck on the street. And thanks to some good tips from the Bfloblog community, we got our sights set for Tavern on the Tracks in Uptown Charlotte, a good Buffalo joint, for some postgame libations.

Want more? On Friday we drive over to Norfolk, Virginia to catch a game of the Norfolk Admirals at the Norfolk Scope, one of the few remaining AHL arenas left on our “to do” list. In fact, only Chicago, Rockford, Quad Cities and Iowa, all midwest destinations, will remain. Wouldn’t that be a cool road trip all on one swing, if a schedule would come together, combined with a Sabres at Chicago game? But that fertile mind attack will be on the future planning matrix.

Saturday we head home. All in all we should log about 3000 miles on this nine day odyssey to Florida and back to Buffalo. Of course, we will have daily updates, reports and photos right here so you can follow along with us!

So last night Pete and I watched the announcement of the field of 65 with greater interest than usual, since we will be in the building for the subs in Tampa. Here are my comments on the four matchups we will be watching:

12:30PM (5) Drake v (12) Western Kentucky - Not only did Drake win the Missouri Valley in the regular season, but blew through their conference tourney and even the final was a laugher. This team is smokin’ hot right about now. Look for Drake to roll.

3:00PM (4) Connecticut v (13) San Diego - I’m picking this one as my upset special. Hey remember San Diego did knock off Gonzaga in the WCC tournament.

7:20PM (4) Vanderbilt v (13) Siena - How does Siena draw a 13 seed, when Niagara got relegated to the play in game as a 16 in last year’s tournament? MAAC schools rarely get out of the first round… look for this trend to continue.

9:50PM (5) Clemson v (12) Villanova - I’ve been on the Clemson Tigers bandwagon ever since we visited Death Valley back in 2006 and had a kick ass good time there. Clemson marched through a difficult ACC field, beating Boston College, Duke and taking North Carolina to the limit on the finals. This game should pose no problem for the Tigers.

So there you have it. Cheers!

-Andrew Kulyk

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