This is the reaction I got from a number of people when I returned from 10 days away.  Ten days for what?  Well…the biggest part was to attend the NAIA Division II Men’s National Basketball Championships held at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout Missouri.

32 college basketball teams descend on this campus for a single-elimination tournament.  In order to pare it down–the first 3 days feature 8 games a day!

Yup!  That is right — I sat and watched 24 games in 3 days — games that started at 8:30am and the last tip-off at 9:45pm.   All in all that was 31 games in a 6 day period of time.  Wow!  What a blast!  And I can hardly wait to go back in a year!

The winners this year were “The Hustlin’ Owls” of Oregon Tech.  One bit of trivia … in 2008 I happened to be in that area and went to the championship game … and Oregon Tech won that year as well!

A genuine bonus in all of this … as if the games were not enough … were the accommodations made available thanks to son Eric and daughter-in-law Sheryl.  Staying at Big Cedar has been a highlight of time away for about 8 years now.  Nothing like waking up in the morning … looking out your veranda doors to see Table Rock Lake and the surrounding hills and valleys near the Branson, MO area.