For starters, Creighton is in downtown Omaha, Neb., a Midwestern state somewhere north of Venezuela. A lot of people like to say Nebraskans only care about one sport: badminton. But that's simply isn't true. There's also Nebraska football. And also, Nebraska spring football. And also, deer hunting. And square-dancing.

They have since -- I've heard -- done much renovation and beautification to downtown Omaha, but Creighton used to be in a shady part of town. The McDonald's we used to walk to got robbed by men with guns a couple times while I was there. (At Creighton, not the McDonald's, though that would be a much better story.)

Many freshmen who go there -- again, Creighton, not the McDonald's -- want to become doctors, and would like to get into Creighton's own medical school, a fine institution, the name of which I forget, because I did not become a doctor. I did, however, give the school many, many thousands of dollars so coach Dana Altman could develop a good basketball team. I then changed majors and transferred to a much, much cheaper school.

I lived in Swanson Hall, which you will have a better appreciation of after watching this short video. My roommate Joe and I lived on the south side of the ninth floor next door to a basketball player named Rodney Buford.

Buford was the first star Altman had at Creighton, the great player who began the turnaround there, the guy who would eventually become Creighton's all-time leading scorer and go on to the NBA ... where he would get arrested so many times the South Florida Sun-Sentinel once summarized his time with the Miami Heat with this line: "Rodney Buford, G, 1999-00, Known for marijuana legacy."

Nice, huh?

There aren't many Buford stories that I can tell here, or anywhere else for that matter, but let's just say he had fun in college and living next to him was always entertaining. He would occasionally walk into our room and say hi, though I'm nearly certain he never knew my name, or that he was in someone else's room.

The one thing I will never forget is the time when he played on our the tackle football team. This was an intramural league that was only loosely sponsored by the university, because it was full tackle with no pads. In one semester, just our team, "Swanson 9-South," suffered two broken fingers and a broken ankle. So a few weeks into the season, Buford shows up to one of the games, and he wants to play. Keep in mind this is DURING the basketball season. (How Altman didn't assign an attorney to follow Buford at all times, I do not know.)

So we let him play. And he scored several touchdowns, because no one wanted to tackle him, because nobody wanted to be the guy who hurt Rodney Buford and wrecked the Creighton basketball season. At the time, you'd have probably gotten expelled for that. He was pretty much the entire team and the only reason anyone came to games was the possibility he might score 30. Or have a paternity suit dropped on him during a TV timeout.

Last Creighton story: One day several of us were riding to an intramural softball game in two cars. As we crossed an overpass in downtown Omaha, we were ushered into the far left lane because police had surrounded a distraught guy who was standing on the edge, threatening to jump. I was in the back car, and one of my friends (And I'm using the term "friend" incorrectly here. He was actually just an idiot) in the front car yells out the window, "DO IT!"

You would not think that during a stressful, emergency situation like that, that an Omaha police officer would get in his car, chase down a passing car in which an idiot had yelled "DO IT!", and give him a $400 ticket for obstructing justice. But you would be very wrong about that.

If you waded through this entire blog entry in the hopes of getting actual insight into Saturday's game, here you go. Creighton guard Nate Funk is really good. As in, could score 30 any night. He doesn't look like much, but he is. Great shooter. I've heard a lot of talk-radio chatter this week about how Creighton has shorter inside players, so that should be to Fresno State's advantage.

Here's the problem: Altman's teams box out. They play good interior defense. They get good position. They anticipate well. They set good screens. Fresno State's big men might be a few inches taller, but they haven't proven much yet.

By the way, the "official American folk dance" of Nebraska really is the square dance. Try to work that into a jeer somehow.