From time to time I find myself fondly recalling my younger years, when mullets were in style, Saturday morning cartoons were still funny, reality TV consisted of that white guy with the ‘fro on PBS teaching you how to paint, and School House Rock taught a generation of kids useful things like proper English grammar and accurate American history in a fun and memorable way. Thus, the title of tonight’s post is a nod to that great American icon, School House Rock. Now let’s all sing the Preamble to the Constitution together, shall we? “We the people…”
Getting back to the business at hand, both 3 seeds that played tonight won, albeit in decidedly different fashion. Xavier barely escaped the clutches of West Virginia, whom I honestly think deserves both the Choke Artist award, sponsored by Reggie Miller, and the Boneheaded Play of the Day award for allowing…whoever that nameless nobody for Xavier was…get the cross-court inbounds pass with 2 seconds left on the shot clock for a wide open three pointer that sealed the win in overtime. Xavier got the four point lead, and I got the four point shaft. (If you’re lost, a WVU win was worth four upset bonus points.)
Louisville, on the other hand, absolutely manhandled a confused and totally discombobulated Tennessee team. No doubt this will spark even more discussion amongst the talking heads on CBS and ESPN concerning the dominance of the Big East this year. I’d like to point out that the Big Ten, supposedly the weakest conference in the tournament this year, is 5-2 so far, which is the best win/loss percentage amongst the Big 6 power conferences, and the Big Ten joins the Big 12 as the only conferences with two teams remaining in the field. (Granted, the Big East also had two before tonight’s games. We’ll wait for tomorrow’s results, and then we’ll talk about it.)
Does anyone besides me wonder who of the remaining 11 teams has any chance in the world of beating North Carolina? Maybe it will be different when they’re not playing in their home state, but that wasn’t the 16 or 9 seed pretender they thumped tonight. Wazzu (thanks to all the Washington State faithful for your lenghty and informative explanations of that term and it’s proper spelling) came in to this game allowing just over 40 points per game in their two tournament wins. They barely scored 40 tonight while giving up 68 to the billy goats in powder blue.
I believe in miracles, but not when it comes to history-making upsets in March Madness. 16’s don’t beat 1’s, and neither do 12’s. The Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky made their game against UCLA interesting for about 5 minutes, but in general, the first Sweet 16 ever to feature two 12 seeds didn’t offer much drama from the first one to play. 12 seeds are now 0-14 all time against top seeds, and as much as I like Villanova, after tomorrow’s date with Kansas, it’s going to be 0-15.
Random Stuff I’m Tired Of Hearing While Watching March Madness
- “Buddy, sweetie, honey, what’s up, what’s shakin’, what’s happenin'” – Nothing like being treated to the first microsecond of two dozen peoples’ phone coversation.
- Fitty Cent pretending to direct some orchestra playing “In Da Club” – Does anyone remember what product that commercial is promoting? Didn’t think so.
- “Daaaa, daaa, da-dat-dat daaaa” and the words “taste infringement” – Those guys need to have a Coke and a smile and chill out
- Tiger Woods’ name – and I’m a big Tiger Woods fan
- “I’m a new soul, I came to this strange world, Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take” – Does anyone believe that Apple’s entire hardware portfolio consists of anything other than glorified MP3 players by now?
I will say that I never get tired of those ETrade commercials with the talking baby. My favorite is the one where he says he told his buddies he was going to rent a clown with all that “extra coin” he earned through the stock market. You can see the clown from the chest down in the background, and then the baby says, “I really underestimated the creepiness.” Classic.
And now for a few awards…
The You Obviously Aren’t Taking This Contest Too Seriously award goes to Josh Christopherson, who could have easily solidified his position in the top 15 for the remainder of the contest by simply re-picking his losers in the final 15 games. Alas, he didn’t, and with only four winnable games remaining at the 6:00 PM deadline, there’s pretty much nowhere for Josh to go but down. Obviously, Josh doesn’t understand how important this whole thing really is. (Spoken with tongue firmly planted in cheek.)
The Rags To Riches award goes to Sammy Brauen, whose perfect 4 for 4 tonight prompted a meteoric rise from 118th to 15th! Way to go, Sammy!
Not to be outdone, Emma Dean lost 3 out of 4 tonight and plummetted from 24th to 255th, earning her the Black Thursday award for crashing her stock in a most spectacular way.
The It’s All Greek To Me award goes to Dave Barndt, whose latin alias “Sibili Si Ergo, Fortibuses In Ero” means, according to tranexp.com, absolutely nothing sensible at all. He is, however, in 5th place, also going 4 for 4 in tonight’s games.
The At Least You Got One Prediction Right award goes to Evan Gidley, who brashly proclaimed through his alias “I’m Going To Beat Jeff!” Unless Davidson pulls off the miracle for me tomorrow night, that is probably going to turn out to be the case.
And with that, I sign off until tomorrow, at which time I’ll present the final Round 3 awards. Stay tuned!