Live Report From The Atlanta Regional

William Hocutt, whom you've read about in these parts before, was in Atlanta for both the Duke-LSU and West Virginia-Texas games last night, and, even though he's a Duke fan, he pulled himself together to file a report from the scene for us.

• The West Virginia fans who sat around us cheered harder for LSU than they did for their own team. They also enjoyed heckling Redick to a level comparable to what we see from the commentators on Deadspin. Kinda sucks that Texas hit that three at the buzzer, eh? Eh? I'm sorry ... I'm giggling uncontrollably from the thought of the entire WVU section completely deflating as Paulino's shot went in. Heh.

• Danny Ainge was in attendance. By himself. Sitting six rows in front of us. Not on the center court aisle, like we were, but on the other end of our section. In the West Virginia section. Ainge also had one of those uber-cell phone earpieces in his ear, but it wasn't the wireless Bluetooth kind, it was wired to his phone. Now, this is just my opinion, but shouldn't the GM of the Boston Celtics (a) be able to get better seats to this type of game and (b) afford a wireless cell phone headset? It got kind of funny before the Duke/LSU game started when random WVU fans kept walking up and interrupting his peanut-eating to just talk to him. Based on what I could see, no one asked for an autograph. Also, he left once Glen Davis of LSU picked up his second foul in the first half (and ended up sitting out until the second half).

• West Virginia fans, besides from really wanting LSU to win, also like to fight amongst themselves. Two rows ahead of us, a fight broke out between WVU fan #1 (who looked like he could be in the West Virginia mafia) and WVU fan #2 (who looked like a science teacher). Mafia Fan had Science Fan by the collar of his shirt and was yelling incoherently at him. Once they were separated, Mafia Fan yelled "There are three minutes left in this...in this...in this final!!!!!" Science Fan just looked at him. Science Fan's wife got up to go get security, but Science Fan pulled rank and told her to sit down. Order was restored. We think that old man Science Fan was yelling at Mafia Fan to sit down, but we can't be sure. You never know with those Mountaineers.

• I now fully expect LSU fans to descend upon Atlanta and turn it into their own private Bourban Street. I see a scenario similar to Lexington in '02 when Indiana fans completely took the town over after they beat Duke in the Sweet Sixteen. The LSU fans probably had the highest attendance total of any of the teams there tonight (with Duke second and WVU third). Texas had, by far, the least in attendance. So, expect an LSU home game come Saturday afternoon.

If anybody else is heading out for the games tonight or any other time this weekend, we encourage you to let us know.

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