The Neal's March Goes Mad

I'm not gonna lie...this post is completely for antagonizing purposes...



When Jen and I got to spend part of the holiday season with Brian and Katie Neal, we saw them right after what was, at the time, the biggest college basketball upset of the season...Brian's beloved Syracuse Orangemen had been dumped by little known Cleveland State...CLEVELAND STATE!!!!



There isn't a person in the world not affiliated with that college that even knew Cleveland State EXISTED!!



Of course, myself and Brian's other friends gave him all kinds of grief that night we saw him...wondering how it was possible the Orange could get dumped by a team like the Vikings (and yes, I had to look up their mascot...thanks Google)

NOW, fast forward three months, and as the brackets for the NCAA Tournament came out, I gave them a glance and noticed that Cleveland State had made the tournament as a 13 seed and would be facing....Wake Forest...otherwise known as the collegiate home of one Katie Neal...




Katie's very conflicted when it comes to her college hoops to begin with...she wants to root for the Demon Deacons since she went there, but she also wants to root for Kentucky, since she grew up in the Bluegrass State...it all came to a head several years ago when we had a NCAA hoops/Easter Egg painting party at 590 Ark Way that featured Wake and Kentucky playing on different channels and Katie showed up with a Kentucky T-shirt and a Wake Forest sweatshirt, and kept pulling the sweatshirt off and on depending on which game we were watching...




Anyways, I had the huge urge to text the Neals and ask them if they were prepared to have Cleveland State break their hearts for the 2nd time in 3 months...and since Kentucky couldn't muster the strength to get into the Big Dance this year, you know Katie was gonna be riding Wake all the way....and why not? This was a team that was number one in the country a few weeks back...





I will repeat that...





THIS WAS A TEAM THAT WAS RANKED NUMBER ONE IN THE COUNTRY A FEW WEEKS BACK...



They had stumbled a bit since then, but few people figured they'd have problems with Cleveland State...




well....




CLEVELAND STATE 84 WAKE FOREST 69

We probably should have seen this coming. Cleveland State had a history in the NCAA Tournament of pulling the upset. It was back in 1986 when, as a 14 seed, they beat heavily favored Indiana and followed it up with a win over St. Joseph's to make the Sweet 16...

Still though...needless to say, if any future Neal children express an interest in going to Cleveland State to further their education, they'll be shipped off to Somalia for hard labor instead...

Mike