Onesie Twosie
If you are a fan of symmetry, or if you are just plain OCD, then you should love this year’s Elite Eight, consisting of all four 1’s, two 2’s, and two 3’s. Not only that, but the bracket is perfectly balanced, with the 2’s and 3’s diagonally adjacent. This makes it theoretically possible for the championship game to be 1 vs 1, 1 vs 2, 1 vs 3, 2 vs 2, 2 vs 3, or 3 vs 3.
Which of these four things does not belong? Tonight’s games consisted of three butt-whoopin’s and a close one. Louisville and North Carolina looked absolutely dominant, and Oklahoma wasn’t far behind. As boring as these games were, they do inspire a few quick awards.
The Screaming Meemie Award goes to Louisville, who apparently cannot dunk the ball without yowling like a Marine charging the hill.
The Boneheaded Award, not to be confused with the Boneheaded Play Of The day Award, goes to Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin, who knocked his melon against the backboard whilst attempting to tear the rim from it.
The I Don’t Belong Here Award, brought to you by Switchfoot, goes to Arizona. I still maintain that their two wins in this tournament mean nothing. They faced inferior opponents each time. When presented with a quality opponent, they looked like the 12 seed they were, or worse.
The Choke Artist Award, sponsored by Reggie Miller, goes to the Kansas Jayhawks, who had Michigan Stateon the ropes, but were simply out-coached down the stretch. Kansas looked lost and confused on every play in the last three minutes. Instead of feeding the ball to their monster in the middle, Cole Aldrich, they gave it to Sherron Collins and prayed for a miracle as he dribbled out the shot clock.
Completely Off Topic
When you watch a lot of basketball, you see a lot of commercials. Most are forgettable. Even the best ones get annoying after the umpteenth viewing. There is one I saw tonight, however, that made me laugh every time. It is one of those E-Trade talking-baby commericials. In this particular skit, the baby is talking trash to some old dude in the locker room at the golf course. The old dude complains that the baby moved his ball, to which the baby responds, “It was on the cart path. Why don’t you try reading the rule book, Mr. Shank-o-potamus!” Hilarious! I’m going to use that one on the golf course this year, guaranteed.
Round 3 Awards
By this time in the contest, it becomes difficult to come up with sensible awards. So tonight, I have decided that most of the awards will be utter nonsense.
The We Are All Sick Of Seeing Your Name On The Leader board, Tiger Award goes to Neal Cunningham, the only contestant who correctly picked all eight teams in the Elite Eight with original picks. Neal is in second place and three points behind the leader.
The You Say That Every Year Award goes to Brad Schafer, who told me today that if the aforementioned Mr. Cunningham wins the contest again, he’ll never play again. See you next year, Scurvy.
The It Must Be The Tacos Award goes to Joey “Roscos Tacos” Inskeep, who has cracked the top 10 for the first time that I can remember.
The It’s Not Working Award goes to Jamie “helping to pad your standings” Prime. Jamie’s rank – 23rd. Whose stats, exactly, were you hoping to pad?
The QED Award goes to Amber “know nothing about basketball” Sprague. Remaining winnable games = 0.
The Goin Down Award goes to Anthony Goin, whose rank keeps goin down, down, down.
The Perhaps You Need Glasses Award goes to Rebecca “Pick Em As I C Em” Davis. Rank – second to last.
The Reluctant Winner Award goes to Traci Murray. In 20th place, Traci confessed she’d rather trade ranks with her son, Elliott Murray, for whom the contest is much more important.
The Don’t Count Your Chickens Award goes to our continued contest leader Dave Wilson, who picked Memphis for the Final Four. With so many scategories bonuses still in play, the final outcome is all but certain.
That’s all I have in the tank for today, folks. Check your brackets, your scores, and root accordingly this weekend.