sweet 16 with coach uncle daniel

The BYU Women's basketball team made history last week by becoming only the third 12 seed to make it to the Sweet 16. They played UConn in Lincoln, only 3 hours away, so of course we had to go.

Bro-in-law/Uncle Daniel is an assistant coach--that's him on the bench in a white shirt and blue tie.

The first half of the game was so exciting. The Cougars were competitive and the lead went back and forth throughout most of the half. At one point the Cougars were up by as much as six, which is a pretty impressive feat considering the Huskies are the overall number one seed in Women's tournament. The Cougars played them as tough as they had been played all year. The second half wasn't as close, but it was still a great game. We were so impressed with all the Nebraska fans at the game. Many of them had purchased tickets BEFORE the Cougars beat UNL to get in this game, but they still came and were mostly cheering for BYU.

Of course there was other entertainment in addition to the game. 

Will was quite impressed by Cosmo's dance skillz. He literally flipped and danced around the Husky. Now maybe Cosmo's costume was a bit more conducive to all that movement, but we'll just stick with the story that Cosmo had by far superior dance moves.

And then there were the bands.

Both kids loved the pep band. There were actually four bands in the arena, one from each of the four schools that were playing in the tournament in Lincoln that day. Will was quick to notice that the BYU band only had two tubas as opposed the the four tubas the UCONN and Texas A&M bands had.

As usual Anthony was the loudest Cougar fan in the audience.

After the game we hung out with Daniel's parents and waited for the team to finish in the locker room. Lauren enjoyed introducing herself to everyone that walked by and telling them that she was two. Both kids got their dance on while we were waiting and bumped into many friends and family members of the team that were also waiting. The did bust out some pretty sweet moves though, so it was hard to get too frustrated with them. And if was good for them get some energy out since we had another 3 hour drive ahead of us. Both kids did fall asleep about an hour out of town so we had a pretty smooth ride home. We couldn't have asked them to behave better.

When Daniel arrived we walked a few blocks to Panera for dinner.

The kids appreciated the extra height they got when atop Uncle Daniel's shoulders.

Thanks for hanging out with us, Coach Uncle Daniel! Will loved racing you back to the hotel and Lauren keeps talking about how tall she was on your shoulders. We had a great time catching up! My only regret about the adventure was that my phone battery almost died after the first half of the game, so I couldn't take better/more pictures.

Go Cougars!