March 20, 2023 News and Notes

• Fairleigh Dickinson gave it a run -- one-possession game within three minutes, before falling to Florida Atlantic by 7 Sunday night, in a game many felt one of the best of the tournament.
• Twelve players are tied for the lead in the ESPN Tournament Challenge -- all went 27-5 for the first round and 15-1 for the second.
• Two brackets are tied for first place in the Yahoo bracket challenge (the only of the four major games to give the top prize to it's winner).  One went 28-4 in the first round and 13-3 in the second, the other went 26-6 and 14-2.  One of nine brackets next in the scoring went 15-1 in the second round.
• Rule #1:  Do Not Get Sent Off.  Shad Khan's Fulham team was ousted from the FA Cup in a chaotic scene yesterday.  Up 1-0 with 20 minutes left against Manchester United, one player gets sent off after VAR awards a penalty.  A second Fulham player is directly sent off due to abuse of the referee, and the Reds get three in the last 20 minutes to win 3-1.
• Scenes in Miami.  Inside the stadium, outside the stadium, and, unassociated, in Miami Beach.
• For the first time in the six decades since Fidel Castro began power, a Cuban national baseball team played in Miami.  They were routed by the United States in the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic.
• Outside the stadium, anti-Communist protestors protested for freedom for the island nation.
• And (later report Monday), as often happens (and why Castro never let the players play in the USA), one of the Cuban players has apparently defected.
• But in Miami Beach, it's Spring Break and the city has called for curfew.  At least two shootings have occurred, and the city is trying to crack down.
• As an adjunct to the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival in Las Vegas in July, the Eorzean Symphony scheduled two shows on the Sunday of that weekend.  All tickets sold out to the event within five minutes.
• This reminds me of a story while I was in San Francisco. The Game Developers Congress was in town, and a Final Fantasy symphony concert was part of the event (complete with Nobuo Uematsu), and, I believe day-of, I was able to get a ticket.  I snagged one of the symphony in the intermission and asked about a certain song (the one which any Final Fantasy fan HAS TO KNOW would be the encore) being the encore.  She could only tell me that "Something 'Angel'" was in the encore.
• Of course, the song I'm referring to is Sephiroth's anthem:  "One Winged Angel".  And this was before the VII Remake took that song, and most of the VII catalogue, to the next level.