Friday, March 20, 2009

March Madness: Day 1

I'm going to write a thank you letter to Al Gore. Because of his invention, I was able to catch nearly every single game of the greatest tournament on Earth (Mortal Kombat is disqualified because only part of it takes place on Earth, but if we're talking about the greatest tournament in the universe, Mortal Kombat does take the cake). I had my TV on CBS while I flipped back and forth between the three remaining games on the internet, typically only needing to watch one at a time since half of them weren't even competitive.

I'm competing in 5 brackets. Up until the Illinois/Western Kentucky game last night, I still had one perfect bracket left. I picked Western Kentucky in 4 out of 5 brackets, but neglected to take the same common sense approach for my perfect bracket. It's no longer perfect, but I'm still doing better than I ever have in previous years. Maybe it's the lack of upsets, and the fact that everyone who SHOULD have won, won. I don't care as long as I finish in the money.

I'm going against about 70 people in the pool at my dad's job. My dad is maybe 5th from last, my grandfather's doing well, he only has 2 wrong so far, and my 1 wrong is good enough for a 2 way tie at 2nd place. You can be sure after today though, I'll have a good 7 or 8 wrong and half my Elite Eight will be out.

Texas A&M was far and away the better team going into their matchup against BYU. They can give a lot of teams headaches, and I'm happy I picked them in all 5 brackets. They're going to give UConn a tough matchup, and I'm not looking forward to that game.

Jon Brockman of Washington gets my "Most Badass Dude" award for Day 1, and definitely put himself far above everyone else for the entire tournament. If you didn't see the play, Brockman jumps up for a rebound, is completely horizontal about 7 feet in the air, and comes down ridiculously hard on the floor. Less than a second later, he turns himself over and flips himself up. It wasn't just the fact that he got up so quickly, but HOW he got up that was super badass. He just made it look like he fell into a pile of feathers, but you know the entire left side of his body was screaming in pain. Badass.

The look on the faces of the women behind the hoop tell the
whole story. My face looked like that, but was also accompanied
by a high pitched "Oh no!". Thankfully, the floor declined to
press charges for the cracks Brockman made when he hit the ground.

Cal State Northridge almost kept up with Memphis. Almost. People still think Memphis should have had the #1 seed over UConn? Proceed with shutting the hell up, now. Now, the Big West is no joke (I have to say that now, because my best friend Kris is about to be an athletic trainer at Cal State Long Beach), but UConn would have at least won by 30 points or more.

Jim Calhoun was in the hospital and couldn't coach the UConn/Chattanooga game. At least that's what he WANTS you to think. You see, George Blaney is a better head coach than a good handful of the head coaches in this tournament. He's just even better as Calhoun's right hand man. Early yesterday morning, Blaney called up Calhoun and said:

GB: Hey Jim, I got two plane tickets to Las Vegas. You want to go get wasted and bang some hookers?

JC: George, we've got a game today, remember?

GB: Oh yeah. Shit...well, how about this? You go, I'll coach the game for you. You've been through a whole ton of crap lately, you deserve a break. Go let off some steam.

JC: I can't just NOT show up George.

GB: Sure you can. You're Jim Calhoun, you're sick ALL THE TIME! Just get Doc Anderson to tell the media that you're not feeling well, and no one will even question you.

JC: You're a true friend, George.

GB: You got it, Jim! Now tell me, if you had $10,000, and you had to budget all of that between hookers, blow, booze, and gambling...how much money would you budget for food?

JC: Not a dime!

GB: Good boy Jimmy.

Note to self: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless
you're rich as hell and can bring the hookers back with you.

Michigan gave me a scare for a while, but eventually they prevailed and topped Clemson. Barely. The good thing for Michigan is that they play an overrated Oklahoma next round. The bad thing is that Michigan sucks.

Speaking of Oklahoma, I would love to get a lesson from Ameer Ali, who flipped Blake Griffin over, on how to do that. Now before I continue, that's a cheap, dirty move, and the guy should be banned from the NCAA. Griffin, while he is a giant toolbox, hadn't done a whole lot to warrant that extremely dangerous move. He could've landed on his head, and a serious injury like that would ruin March Madness for everyone.

Now that I've said that, if this were a wrestling match, I'd have been really excited about how badass that flip was. Their arms were slightly tangled, so he grabbed a hold of Griffin's arm, quickly did some long division and trigonometry and calculated the best angle to flip Griffin over. Then I think he actually tried to argue being ejected. There was room to believe when DeJuan Blair flipped Hasheem Thabeet over that it could've been unintentional. You couldn't really make that argument here. Ali, you win my award for "Most douchebag move that would be totally awesome if this weren't the NCAA Tournament". Congratulations!

Villanova gave me a big scare, but I've got them out in the 2nd round anyway, so it would'nt have been devastating if American pulled off the upset. It would have ruined my all Big East bracket though, where no Big East team loses except to another Big East team. It's like how the only thing strong enough to cut a diamond is another diamond. Or Jon Brockman.

UCLA also gave me a scare. Luckily the scare wasn't as big because I was asleep before halftime (that's what you get for working at 6am every day). Virginia Commonwealth, representing my suckbag conference, the CAA, put together a solid outing. Good game fellas, I'm just glad you didn't beat my sacrificial lamb to Duke in the Sweet 16.

I may have overlooked how tough Washington is. I've got a sinking feeling if they beat Purdue, then the Jon Brockman/Hasheem Thabeet matchup is going to be very bad for UConn. Brockman's not built like a basketball player, he's built like a guy who crushes rocks with his bare hands for a living.

Matchups you should be interested in today:

Marquette/Utah St. The Aggies might very well be the weakest 11 seed, and on a good day Marquette can play like a #3 seed, but Utah St. has the home court advantage. Their fans will travel a long way to see them, and while Idaho is a ways away, I've got a feeling it'll feel just like home for Utah St.

Syracuse/Stephen F. Austin. I'm interested in this game for 2 reasons. The first is to see if the guy on SFA I paid off to Blake Griffin flip Devendorf will actually go through with it. Wishful thinking isn't too terrible, right? The second reason is to see how Cuse performs. They've had time to rest since the Big East Tournament, and while I think they're ranked too highly, they've got a ton of confidence. They'll win this game, that I'm sure of. I just want to see what kind of matchup they'll be giving the rest of the South field this tournament. I need an Elite Eight out of them, but I'll settle for a busted bracket if they get knocked out early. Also, Eric Devendorf.

Michigan St/Robert Morris. If there's going to be a #2/#15 upset this year, it's right here. Michigan St. is far and away the best #2 seed, but Robert Morris has that undeniable swagger you can only find from a Pennsylvania school with 4,000 students. Tom Izzo probably feels his guys deserved a #1 bid, but after the Beasts of the Northeast start the game on a 10-0 run, he'll hit the panic button. Ok, in reality this should be a blowout for Michigan St. But I would love a Disney movie in 10 years about the improbable run Robert Morris made in the NCAA Tournament.

People shouldn't be surprised when Robert Morris proves to
be a basketball powerhouse, as their namesake was known
to be a hoops fanatic. Even before the sport was invented.

Utah/Arizona. If Arizona has watched absolutely ANY coverage of the tournament selections (which they have), they know that everyone felt they didn't deserve to get in. That's what makes this matchup interesting. Will the Arizona that we expect to fall on their face show up, or will Kurt Warner come and give a pregame pep talk about how no one believed in the Cardinals but themselves? Then before we know it, we have a stupid #12 seed in the Final Four.

Xavier/Portland St. This is my upset pick. On my official bracket (a.k.a. the one I care about the most because of the massive amounts of money I can win), I've got them facing off against Wisconsin in the 2nd round. Portland St. isn't coming in with the "We're happy just to be here" mentality, that I can assure you. Xavier's got a lot of weak spots and has played inconsistently as of late. Portland St. has a dangerous perimeter game, and it's teams that can knock down the 3's that can make a late run and get a huge upset.

I'll probably make a post later once I've lost 5 games in a row.

1:03 pm: Ok, so as of right now, it looks like I was right about the crowd for Utah St. They're definitely there to root for them. It looks like this game might not be as close as I expected though.

If North Dakota St. keeps it close and wins, that's alright with me. I've got Kansas losing 2nd round anyhow.

Eric Bell, the shortest player in the NCAA Tournament, is shorter than my mom. I just want to throw Eric Bell in my backpack and walk around with him, he's so tiny.

The Tennessee/Oklahoma St game looks to be better than I expected. I'll be rooting for OK St for my bracket's sake, but in my hurt, I can't go against Peyton Manning's alma mater.

1:17 pm: Utah St is staying in this now. If they catch fire the second half, just watch. An 8 point deficit can turn into a one possession game very quickly.

1:45 pm: Utah St now down by 1 point. I'm telling you guys, it can happen.

2:43 pm: Marquette won by a point. Total margin of loss in my two bracket losses: 5 points.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Brockman is a badass.

During the Pac-10 Tournament - he broke his nose during the game. He had it reset on the sideline and came back in.

Needless to say - he broke it again during the game you just watched. He doesn't play with a mask, stayed in the game and plans to play the next game without a mask.

He needs to join the NFL - someone that tough should be hitting people.