Brendan and DU Bally’s Excellent
Above-the-Red-Line Adventure:
Jimmer @ Wyoming, SDSU @ CSU

Well… that was one of the nuttiest things I’ve ever done. But so much fun. Totally worth it. My most memorable basketball experience since BracketBusters 2007.

I hope to do a full write-up later. For now, here are two videos, neatly showing the beginning and the end. The first is of DU Bally in Laramie at 6:02 PM, watching the opening tip of BYU-Wyoming. The second is the view, from my seat in Fort Collins at 9:11 PM, of the thrilling final moments SDSU-CSU, as the Rams tie the game and the crowd erupts, then the Aztecs win it and the crowd deflates. Absolutely awesome atmosphere at Moby Arena. Phenomenal college basketball experience.

(For a full view of the action, you may want to change the resolution on the CSU-SDSU video from its default 360p to 760p (HD), and blow it up to full screen.)

Anyway, like I said, more later (in a new post). After the jump, the original post introducing today’s “Excellent Adventure.”

To some of you, Wednesday is Groundhog Day. To others, it’s National Signing Day. To me and my trusty stuffed basketball, it’s Brendan & Bally’s Excellent Adventure Day!!!

That’s right — neither rain nor snow nor really, really freakin’ cold weather will keep Bally and me from our multi-state college basketball adventure! Er, probably. Hopefully.

If all goes as planned, Bally and I will be going on a college basketball odyssey that promises to be fun, bizarre, unprecedented (in my experience, anyway), and distinctly Mid-Majority-esque — with the small technicality that all of the schools we’re going to see are above the Red Line (but in the case of the home teams, Wyoming and CSU, they almost might as well not be, money-wise). It’s a ROAD TRIP, baby!!! And not just any road trip. We’re talkin’ four Mountain West teams… two of ’em in the Top 10… two games… two states… ninety miles…. three-and-a-half hours. In sum: One man. One stuffed basketball. One crazy basketball adventure. Oh, and THE JIMMER.

Here’s the plan. DU Bally and I will drive north from Denver to Laramie, Wyoming, leaving in the mid-afternoon Mountain Time, so we can arrive in plenty of time for the 6:00 PM tipoff of #8 BYU (and Jimmer Fredette) vs. Wyoming at the Dome of Doom.

Then, assuming we aren’t compelled by the Power of The Jimmer to stay — and assuming my observations of the road conditions en route north suggest I’ll be able to make good enough time heading back south — we’ll leave Wyoming at halftime, and drive the ~75 minutes to Fort Collins for #7 SDSU at Colorado State in Fort Collins. That game tips off at 7:15 PM, so if we leave Laramie around 7:00, we should be in Fort Collins in time for the second half. Ish.

That “road conditions” thing is a big “if,” though. Although the Great #Snowpocalypse #Snowckenlooper #Snowprah #Snowbama #Snowmageddon #SnOMG #SnolySh*t Blizzard of 2011 only delivered a glancing blow to Colorado and Wyoming before exploding across the Plains, the bitterly cold Arctic air mass it left behind means that whatever snow did fall hasn’t had any opportunity to melt, even if it’s been salted. And that’s not likely to change by Wednesday afternoon. However, looking at traffic cams a little while ago, things actually look okay up north; I don’t think they got as much snow as Denver did (which wasn’t much, but was enough to make the roads very treacherous). But, we’ll see. I’ll have to make a judgment on the northbound drive. If it’s slick enough that I won’t be able to safely “book it” back to Fort Collins, then I’ll just stay in Wyoming for the whole game. That wouldn’t be all bad — I have a press pass at Wyoming, so if I stay, I can not only watch, but interview The Jimmer. But, that said, I’d hate to miss SDSU-CSU, which I actually have a ticket for, and which promises to be an exciting game (unlike the expected BYU blowout of Wyoming).

Anyway… whatever happens, you’ll be able to follow along live. During the games, I probably won’t be tweeting quite as much as I do during DU games, because I want to be sure I actually get to fully watch and take in both The Jimmer’s magic and the likely-to-be-electric atmosphere of the big SDSU-CSU game, without Twitter becoming too much of a distraction. However, I’ll still live-tweet some, both the journey and the games (though no text-tweeting while driving, of course!), and I’ll also post live streaming video updates via Qik. And you can cyber-stalk my geographic location via InstaMapper.com! (Though it won’t be updated if I’m doing anything else with my phone, like live-streaming video.)

See below. The video window will automatically “go live” when I’m broadcasting; otherwise it will display the most recent live video I’ve uploaded.

As usual, you can join in the conversation by tweeting something “@brendanloy“; it’ll appear in the liveblog window above (possibly after a slight delay). If you like, you can do this using the reply window below. NOTE: After the first tweet, you will need to retype “@brendanloy” in the window for each subsequent tweet.

[event over, so tweet reply box removed]