Sitting courtside here as the Bowling Green-Michigan State game is set to tip off momentarily. Liberty and Kentucky meet 30 minutes afterward. I’m about five paces from center court on what will be the Kentucky side of the floor. If a camera zooms in on me, I promise I’ll wave, just like Jimmer Fredette did during BYU’s first-round men’s tournament win over Florida on Thursday.

(Aside No. 1—I love watching Fredette play. Might be my favorite player left in the tournament.)

(Aside No. 2—Oh, wait, this is the women’s tournament. I forgot we’re not supposed to be talking about the men’s tournament here. The Washington Post’s Kathy Orton reported yesterday via Twitter that at the Berkeley, Calif., site, which included Georgetown, the NCAA folks would not turn on the men’s first-round games. That’s silly considering there were no women’s games being played yesterday. They had the games on in the press room at Freedom Hall, FWIW.)

Speaking of Twitter, you can follow me there at @chris_lang_blog. We’ll be taking a different approach today during the game. It seems the NCAA frowns upon “real-time game reporting” from anyone but itself or its TV partner at ESPN. So I won’t be able to give any score updates during the game. I don’t want to be led off the floor by NCAA people with a bucket on my head, much like Newman during a famous Seinfeld episode. I’ll try to add color/analysis/commentary to what’s going on, stuff you might not see on TV. I assume most who care about this game will be watching on TV anyway, since it’s readily available on ESPN2 in most of Central/Southside Virginia. I checked out the coverage maps yesterday, though, and if you’re in Richmond/Tidewater/D.C. area and want to watch the game, you’re out of luck. It’s whip-around coverage for those markets. The entire state of Kentucky will be able to watch the game in its entirety.

Some bullet-point thoughts as we while away the time until tip-off:

* This is the most “winnable” first-round game Liberty has played since my time on the beat started in 2005. The Flames went to the Sweet 16 the year before I started and haven’t won a tourney game since. They haven’t exactly pulled very good draws, either. To review:

—2006—at DePaul. This was the year Megan Frazee tore an ACL and the Flames were taking on a DePaul team on its home floor that was still angry about the 2005 second round matchup in which Liberty beat the Blue Demons. The Flames really never had a chance in this one, and it was over quickly.
—2008—at Old Dominion. Ranked in the top 25 in the RPI, Liberty somehow draws a 12 seed and has to face an underseeded ODU team on its home floor. I think ODU was No. 9 in the RPI at the time, so there’s no way the Monarchs should have been a No. 5 seed. Monarchs win easily.
—2009—vs. Louisville in Baton Rouge. Louisville should not have been a No. 3 seed. At worst a No. 2. And the Cardinals were a borderline No. 1. Of course, they proved as much by getting to the championship game after routing Liberty in the first round.

* This is not to say Kentucky is not talented. The Wildcats are athletic as heck and finished second in the SEC. You don’t luck into a second-place finish in that league. But this Kentucky team has no NCAA tournament experience, and while the game is close to home for UK (Lexington is an hour east on I-64), it’s not a home game. That said, there’s already a good bit of Kentucky blue filing into Freedom Hall.

* A few things have to happen for Liberty to win this game today:

1. The Flames MUST value the basketball. Look, nothing against Radford, but you can get away with playing sloppy and turning the ball over 20-plus times against a 6-22 Big South team. Not so much against a team that boasts the SEC player, freshman and coach of the year. Radford doesn’t make you pay for those kinds of mistakes. Kentucky will punish you. Liberty has to be especially careful around half court, where Kentucky will employ various traps. The way to beat a good trap is with impeccable passing. You can’t dribble through a double team. Try that, and the Wildcats will fast break their way to a blowout. If Liberty turns it over 26 times like it did against Gardner-Webb last Sunday, the Flames will have ZERO chance of winning this game.

2. Avery Warley must play SEC-level basketball. Gardner-Webb coach Rick Reeves noted last week that Warley is as physical as any of the posts his team had faced in non-conference play, and that included games against teams like Houston, Purdue and North Carolina. Warley got into foul trouble in the Big South semifinals and never was a factor, and she was mostly a non-factor in the championship game (at least until coming up with a huge rebound in the final minute). Kentucky doesn’t have anyone who can defend her straight up, and my guess is that the Wildcats will throw a lot of junk defenses at Devon Brown to try to keep her from taking over. Warley needs to get open near the basket, demand catches and pass well out of double teams.

3. Liberty will probably need to hit some outside shots. In that regard, freshman Jelena Antic, the former LCA standout, is really starting to find a groove from the outside after missing several games in the middle of the Big South season with a foot injury. From a physical perspective, Green said, Antic is back to 100 percent.

“Jelena had the setback that took her out, and she lost some timing and lost some confidence,“ Green said. “She was playing very confident and was playing very, very well. She’s come back and she’s gaining confidence. If we had another couple of weeks of practice, I think that would be to her and our advantage. We’re on a different stage now. This is the highest level and I expect her to step it up. Hopefully, she’ll take a deep breath, enjoy the moment and play like a sophomore instead of like a freshman. She’s hungry for it. You just never know how the pressure at this stage will affect each player. She’s shown a lot of maturity and a lot of growth recently.“

* Proving Green’s point that “she’s never met a stranger,“ Amber Mays stepped to the podium yesterday and before the moderator could introduce her, Mays grabbed the mic and said, “hey y’all, I’m Amber, how’re you doing?“ She’s really been a fun player to deal with this season on my end.

* This Kentucky group looks like it would be a lot of fun to work with on a regular basis, too.

Guard Amber Smith noted that coach Matthew Mitchell was “funny, really crazy,“ yesterday. Pressed for an example, Smith told a story about how Mitchell likes to sing to his players some times. Mitchell, who was sitting on the other end of the podium, glared playfully at his guard, who continued on anyway.

Asked what he likes to sing, she said, “Whitney Houston.“ Someone asked, “like, ‘I’m Every Woman?‘ Whitney Houston?“ Mitchell confidently nodded.

“He thinks he’s a good singer,“ Victoria Dunlap said. “He’s pretty good. He’s all right. If he was on American Idol, I would vote for him. All the way ‘til the end.“

Added Smith: “He sings 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club.‘ That’s the new song out. That’s his newest hit. It’s like 10 years old, but whatever. That’s his good song.“

* Personal note. This is my first trip to Freedom Hall since the spring of 1995, when as a college sophomore at Virginia Tech, I was part of the Collegiate Times team that covered the final Metro Conference tournament. For those who don’t remember, the final Metro alignment was: Virginia Tech, Southern Mississippi, Tulane, South Florida, UNC Charlotte (as it was still called then), Louisville and VCU. The conference disbanded, with Virginia Tech heading to the Atlantic 10; VCU to the Colonial; Southern Miss, Tulane, South Florida, Charlotte and Louisville to Conference USA. The new league wanted nothing to do with Tech or VCU, and the Big East—which Tech was starting to carry in football—didn’t want the Hokies either. The Atlantic 10 was a weird spot to land for Tech, but it was a spot. Strangely enough, Charlotte would eventually end up in A-10 after the great shift of CUSA teams to the Big East.

That tournament was a pretty fun time for a cub reporter. I got a chance to interview legendary Louisville coach Denny Crum and experienced a media hospitality room for the first time. (Some like to call it a hostility room.) The Metro organized a media basketball game during one of the off days, and we played a true game of 5-on-5 on the Freedom Hall floor. Pretty cool experience. So walking back in here yesterday gave me a flood of memories.

That’s it for now. Enjoy the game, all.