By Joe Becker

Only one team will finish the season winning it's final game...and that will be the National Champion. Everyone else, no matter how great the season was, will be left somewhat dissapointed.

It was truly a special season for the Ducks. They won 29 games, tying the 1939 Tall Firs for second most in school history, and reached the elite 8 for the second time in six seasons. They beat every team seeded higher than them. They didn't gag or choke under the pressure. They lost to the defending National Champs...a Florida team that may go back-to-back as Champions, one of the rarest feats in Sports.

It was a weekend I will never forget. As many of you know...I grew up in St. Louis so that made it even more special. It was the first time in close to 30 years I had covered a sporting event in my hometown.

As usual, I worked with the "ACE", Brian Warner, our Sports Photographer at KGW-TV. Brian is an amazing Photographer and a blast to hang out and work with. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Union Station. Union station was designed in 1894 and was once the largest and busiest railroad terminal in the world. It's now a hotel and mall.

It was Brian's first time in St. Louis, but I made sure we went to White Castle...twice. I had four hamburgers and six cheeseburgers. They are small at White Castle, in fact, the hamburgers cost 47 cents. Looks good on the expense report.

We also went to Ted Drewes frozen custard. It's a St. Louis tradition that goes back close to 80 years. We did a spot on Ted Drewes on TV on Saturday in between games. It's located on historic Route 66. When we got there...there were several lines and dozens of people waiting. One regular said "This isn't even crowded...you should see it at night."
They served Ted Drewes to the media at the Edward Jones Dome during the four days we were there. Good stuff.

The weather couldn't have been better. It was about 65 to 75 degrees everyday we were there...and was in the 80's on Sunday.

This Ducks team was fun to watch...and fun to cover. It was a good group of guys...and they were very good with the media. A funny moment happened after the Ducks win over UNLV on Friday. Freshman guard Tajuan Porter made headlines with 8 three pointers and 33 points. When he had finished on court interviews...he was running back to the locker room and almost ran through the wrong tunnel he was so excited. Brian had a great shot of it...and we ran it Saturday night during the 5pm sports.

Porter almost ran the wrong way...but this Ducks team ran the right way all season. They played hard, they played well and gave everything they had. Missouri is known as the show me state...and the Ducks showed, not just Missouri, but the rest of the country, what they are made of.