This is The World According to Buchs - Keepin’ it moving since 2003!

It had completely slipped my mind until Judy reminded me at 3:00 yesterday, but we were invited to go to the Milwaukee Bucks/New Jersey Nets game at the Bradley Center last night.

Oh, and we’d be sitting in Herb Kohl’s suite.

I would estimate that of the last 10 basketball games (MU and Bucks) I’ve seen at the “BC”, at least 6 of them have been from a suite. It’s the only way to go. To quote Ferris Bueller, “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”

Our good friends Sean and Lucia were able to obtain 4 seats in the box via a charity auction for the clinic Lucia works for. Senator Kohl graciously donated the seats. They were also kind enough to provide us with a ride for the evening - door to door service.

We also had no idea who else would be in the box that night. Sean and I were fairly certain that the Senator would sit in his usual seats off the floor, which meant there could be up to 12 other people joining us. When we arrived, there was one other person in the room, a middle-aged guy who introduced himself as Eric. About 5 minutes before tipoff, the rest of his group arrived. I didn’t hear it at the time, but Judy mentioned that she overheard one of them say they “had to stop at the hotel and drop off their guns”. We later found out that all these men were with the Oneida County Sheriff’s Department (which left me wondering, who’s watching Oneida County?). “Eric”, we later discovered, was the local head of a law enforcement program these guys were in town to do some training with.

The game itself was great. I think NJ opened up with a 20-9 lead, and were were down by 10 at the end of the first quarter. Shooting % was somewhere around 33% - Gadzuric missed 4 shots on his own, and the rest of the team was cold, too. 2nd quarter they snuck back in the game with a few solid runs, and finished the half down by 1.

During halftime, we mingled about the suite and had some snacks. Senator Kohl dropped in to shake some hands. He had with him to younger associates who we thought were his assistants. We later found out that they were FBI agents (Sean spotted a 9MM on the girl he was talking to, and decided to ask her about it).

The third quarter was very entertaining. Bucks took control of the game, outscoring the Nets 30-19. Highlights were 2 consecutive fast-break opportunities that ended with Desmond Mason alleyoop dunks. The second of which is hard to describe: it was a 3-on-1, with Redd and Mason coming down the right wing. Mike James threw it up for the alleyoop - and I swear he was trying to get it to Redd. Both Redd and Mason took off, but Mason was closer to James, threw his arm out to snatch the ball away from Redd, and slammed it home.

4th quarter was the ZaZa show. Pachulia was everywhere. I commented to Judy that I wasn’t sure who was happier - Pachulia that he was having such a good game, or the announcer who got to keep screaming “Zaza” over the PA. The game was essentially over after the 3rd, and I don’t think Jason Kidd even played the 4th.

Great game, good fun. See you next time, Senator.