What I learned from the first weekend of the tournament.

Good morning. As those of you who follow college basketball obviously know by now, we have reached the Sweet 16, and although there are some usual suspects in said Sweet 16, there are a few glaring omissions, most notably Duke and defending champion Villanova.

North Carolina made it, and in doing so became the only team from the ACC left. Wake Forest got dumped in the First Four, and Miami and Virginia Tech were bounced Thursday/Friday. But this weekend was one big Crying Jordan for ACC faithful. Notre Dame? Bounced by West Virginia. Virginia? Throttled by Florida. Louisville? Bamboozled by Meeechigan. Finally there's Duke, who got henpecked by...South Carolina???

A few words about the Gamecocks: no, I am not a fan. If I had to choose between them and Clemson, 101 times out of 100 it would be Clemson. And don't get me started on their coach; Frank Martin.

(chicagonow.com)

Dude is the modern day version of Bobby Knight. Screaming, ranting, raving, and overall just being an a*****e to his players. When he left K-State (presumably because him and AD John Currie did not see eye to eye), I thought to myself, "great, now Kansas State can be rootable once again." (I'm no fan of Kansas, either). Until I realized that he was at South Carolina. Poop. I was hoping they would miss the tournament altogether. Now they're in the Sweet 16, where they haven't been since 1973. Their tournament legacy can be summed up in two seasons; 1997 and 1998 where as #2 and #3 seeds, they lost to Coppin State and Richmond. El-Oh-Bleeping-El.

Their reward for beating the Dookies? Baylor. Uggggggh. The athletic program NOBODY likes. Let's take a look at their recent stellar basketball history, shall we? Hoo boy. And that's just hoops. Football? Holy cow. I'd need two weeks to go over every single thing wrong with that outfit, so here's some articles from Deadspin about how mismanaged their Athletic Department is.

And yes, their chancellor is the same Ken Starr who was independent counsel during the Clinton Impeachment hearings.

But enough about USC South Carolina and Baylor, here's what else we learned from the first weekend of play:

There were no real Cinderellas. Only one twelve seed (a 30-win Middle Tennessee squad) won their first round game. Only one double-digit seed (Xavier) made the Sweet 16. Speaking of Xavier, uh, Florida State, what happened? Three of the four #1 seeds made it past this weekend; the aforementioned Villanova being the lone casualty; to Wisconsin.

Oh, and you filled out a bracket, it probably looks like this:

Oops...

Be that is it may, the Madness starts up again this Thursday night. Suffice to say if you're a fan of Arizona, Kansas, and North Carolina right now, you have to like your chances of getting to Glendale. As for the East region, now that Duke and Nova are out, could it be possible that FLORIDA makes the Final Four???

I have my fingers crossed.



CT

March Madness, But Winter Ain't Dead Yet

Greetings everyone, spring is just around the corner which means two things: the NCAA College Basketball Tournament and warmer weather.  Yes, there are more than just two (Spring Training, Daylight Savings Time, etc.), but for the purposes of this post, I'm choosing to focus on these.

March Madness is Here

First, college basketball. Anyone and everyone who follows sports (and some who don't) usually takes time to fill in a bracket for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Some also fill out a bracket for the women's tournament, but let's be honest; women's basketball is a one team show and has been for a few years now. Every tournament is practically the UConn Invitational because the Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team has won an insane 105 consecutive games. So that tournament is a foregone conclusion. The men is somewhat a different story...somewhat.

More often than not, schools that reach the Final Four (TM) are the usual suspects; Kentucky, Kansas, Louisville, North Carolina, Duke, usually a Big Ten team, sometimes a Pac-12 team, a Big East team, and every once in a blue moon a Cinderella mid-major squad (George Mason in 2006). Admittedly I have not watched much college basketball this season. I'm over the Duke-UNC rivalry for the most part; which wasn't the bane of my college hoops fandom in my younger years, but was quite significant. Back in those days (mid-to-late 80s) Duke quite wasn't the behemoth of the program that they are now under Coach Krzyzewski; growing up in St. Pauls, NC is was more UNC vs NC State; Dean Smith vs Jim Valvano. No don't get me wrong, Smith and Coach K was quite the rivalry (which at this point was just starting to warm up), but for some reason it was the late Valvano (and his infectious, gregarious personality) that was second fiddle to the Dean. Winning that title at Albuquerque in 1983 certainly helped. But it wasn't until Duke had their Final Four run in 1986 and NC State's fall from grace amidst scandal soon thereafter that Duke-UNC garnered all the attention.

But I digress...

So no, I haven't watched much college basketball this year. I did attend one game: South Florida hosting South Carolina. God the Bulls were horrible this year. How horrible? Well, this happened. Aside from that being the most Tampa thing to happen to a college basketball team, that's about as rock bottom as you can get.

Speaking of Tampa, and going back to my earlier rant, remember when University of Tampa beat NC State??? Good times (and I think what was the beginning of the end of the Valvano era in Raleigh).

Anyway, before this post goes completely off the rails, here are what few observations I made about what sporatic college basketball I did watch:

The Big Ten Tournament was played in Washington DC; nowhere near their Midwest fan base; as a wink and a nod to Maryland. The ACC Tournament was held in Brooklyn. First time they've been in the northeast. So you have the Big Ten in ACC country and the ACC in traditional Big East country. Not to mention, Northwestern...NORTHWESTERN...had their best record in school history and punched their first ever ticket to the men's tournament. And the Ivy League had a conference tournament for the first time ever. 

Speaking of the Tournament, Amway Center in Orlando is a site for this weekend's action. Four teams from Florida made the field and three of them are playing in Orlando: Florida, Florida State, and Florida Gulf Coast. Also coming to Orlando, my favorite mid-major school: UNCW! My thoughts on the bracket:

• Florida doesn't make it out of Orlando
• UNCW reaches New York and the Sweet 16, they have to beat UVa first.
• Wichita State was woefully underseeded and Illinois State got screwed.
• In fact, if you were a mid-major that didn't win their conference tournament, you were screwed royally. Just ask Monmouth.

The team I have winning it all: Kentucky. Total homer pick for my daughter (who turns 18 on Friday and I am freaking out about it). Speaking of who, she got a prom dress this past weekend...and a prom date! Her dress is blue and blue looks very good on her; makes me wish she can go to college where she lives in Lexington and become a Wildcat...hmmm...maybe I can do something in the future to make that happen...but I digress.

But I have Kentucky beating defending champion Villanova in...Phoenix this year. Hold up, I had to Google that info. Is it too late to double check my bracket to take a closer look at Arizona?  Ok, just one change to make; I replaced Nova with Arizona. So Kentucky will beat Arizona to win the title. And since the Final is being held in Arizona, the weather should be nice to be out and about...which brings me to...

Winter Ain't Dead Yet

As I am writing this, the northeast is getting ready to get hammered by a very late winter storm. And the good folks at the Weather Channel has given in the name of Stella...can you imagine hearing Marlon Brando shouting "HEY STELLA!!!!" out his window as he's stuck inside during this snowstorm (of course if winter storms were named back in the day). Definitely no streetcar named desire for this one. The one before Stella was named Reggie. Sorry, when I think of Reggie, I don't think of blizzard conditions in the middle of February; I think of Mr. October himself, Reggie Jackson. Well, winter weather does happen in October so...maybe it fits???

Anyway, and I'm sure I have mentioned this in a previous post, but naming winter storms are dumb. The NWS doesn't do it, so they aren't official anyway. However, in the interests of me poking fun at the Weather Channel's policy of doing so, I have created my own naming list of winter storms:

Achoo (because you sneeze in winter)

Blyad' (a Russian profanity)

Carbonate (Han Solo was frozen in it)

Dingbat (who I think folks at TWC are for doing this)
Electra (bc Carmen got pretty cold after marrying Dennis Rodman)

Fahrvergnugen (just a cool sounding name)
Gossamer... (just hair and sneakers)
Hasenpfeffer (another cool sounding name, right Yosemite Sam?)
Icanteven (seriously, I can't even with these)
Jackfrost (fitting)
Kringle (again, fitting)
Labrador (it's cold in Canada, eh?)
Margie (this one's personal)
Nincompoop (again, a foolish practice)
OMG (more like SNOWMG, am I right?)
Poo (bc winter weather is really shitty)
Rapscallion (slides off the tongue nicely)
Scuzzlebutt (South Park yeti)
Toejam (I thought about using Trump, but I didn't want to get too political. Still, gross)
Vick (or Vap-O Rub, to clear those dripping nostrils)
Wingding (seriously, have you seen the wingding font?)
Yahtzee (bc that's what you wind up playing when you have no electricity in an icestorm)

Hope this made you laugh, a little.

Well, I have to get ready to do some training here shortly for a new venture I am partaking in. Some life changes are on the way; hopefully for the better. In the meantime, enjoy the basketball and stay warm!

CT