Call it the unluck of the Irish.  A night after St. Patrick's Day, luck seems not to be on my side.

This story starts at noon, when I arrived to work to cover Day 1 of the West Virginia state basketball tournament.  The Charleston Catholic game started at 1 p.m. in Charleston, so I had a few minutes of wiggle room to get there by tip-off.

I have preferences when it comes to WSAZ vehicles.  Some cars are better than others.  Some cars are cleaner than others.  The vaunted "weather van," while clean, is not at the top of my list.  But, Wednesday, I'd be stuck with it.

Sure enough, as soon as I hit Interstate 64, my front right tire blew.  I felt like Joe Nemechek at the Coca Cola 600.

I'm no David Puddy from Seinfeld--"Grease Monkey," I am not.  But after about 45 minutes, I successfully put on the spare tire.  All the lug nuts but one were successfully tightened.  Somehow, I managed to break the metal on one of the screws.  Suffice to say, changing a tire is probably not recommended for someone on physical therapy for a "lumbar strain" in his back.

I arrived at the Charleston Civic Center as the 4th quarter started.  The Irish were up by about 20.  They scored only two baskets the entire quarter.  I missed one of them while getting "cutaways" of the student section and chit-chatting with A.J. from 8 and Jared from 13.

So, this blog is dedicated to you, Charleston Catholic fans and players.  Sorry the only basket I got was from Logan Riley with a minute left in the game.

There are two silver linings to this frustrating story.

1) Jessica Ralston mentioned my greasy shirt on her Twitter page.

2) Logan got his name on the 6 and 11 o'clock news...