Whew! I Need To Catch My Breath
So after booking it home from work and placing a quick online order to Pizza Hut, I sat down to watch the last of five fantastic finishes from the first eight games of the tournament. Now that I’ve sucked down my personal pan with sausage and pepperoni and thrown the five-year-old boy in the tub (I didn’t want to take time out from basketball to give him a bath, but he has moss growing from his armpits), I can sit down on the couch with my laptop, remote, and Mt. Dew and furiously hammer out some comments while the next round of games get going. I wonder how long it takes the average five-year-old to get all shriveled up in the tub.
There Are Upsets, and Then There Are Upsets
Five of the first eight games today were decided by a total of 10 points. The favorites came out ahead 3-2, but it just as easily could have been 0-5…or 5-0. Oh, how beautiful is the madness of March.
It was not all that surprising nor unexpected when The Richmond Spiders dispatched the Vanderbilt Commodores assuring the nearly annual ritual of at least one 12 seed advancing to the second round…or is it the third round? Ok, forgive me for interrupting myself, but this would be a good time to award the Boneheaded Play Of The Day award to the NCAA for deciding to call the “First Four” the “First Round” and confusing the majority of the viewing public by calling today’s round the second round. Good grief, gentlemen, four games does not constitute a “round” unless the words elite and eight are involved. Anyway, back to the upsets…
While Richmond’s victory may have been an upset in name only, Morehead State’s stunning defeat of intra-state rival Louisville has the 50 contestants who took them to the Final Four weeping and gnashing their teeth. I must say, I heard ESPN’s Doug Gottleib point to this game as one to watch this morning, and I nearly changed my pick because of it. At this point, I wish I had.
Three other favorites escaped by the hair of their chinny chin chins. Princeton nearly became the second 13 seed in less than two hours to beat a 4 seed from the state of Kentucky, but they came up one defensive play short of victory. Butler won in apparently spectacular fashion involving Matt Howard and a wild scrum for the ball at the buzzer. Unfortunately, I missed that finish due to a meeting at work. Tomorrow, I’m calling in sick. And then there was Temple who beat Penn State on the most impossible step-around leaner you’ve ever seen. In fact, I’m pretty sure it actually was an impossible shot. Show me a replay where both of Juan Fernandez’s feet are in the frame, and I’m willing to bet that he came back down from his leap before he released the ball. This kind of play is one that I have not-so-affectionately referred to as “the Michael Jordan rule” over the years, but I’ll reserve that particular rant for another day.
One Quick Award
Two contestants’ achievement this afternoon is worthy of recognition. The Crazy Eights award goes to Andrew Bolin and Ben Hodson who picked all eight of this afternoon’s games correctly. Who says you can’t win ’em all? Well done, gents.
And now I turn my attention to Belmont vs. Wisconsin. Hopefully the refs will swallow their whistles before fouling out the entire Belmont team and bailing out what I feel is a highly overrated Badger squad.
Before I go, I leave you with this insightful response to my scathing rebuke of the St. Peter’s Peacocks from one alert contestant.
Standing Up For the Peacock
Regarding the tournaments worst mascots, there is no doubt that kangaroos are cool and that peacocks, with their shimmering, flashing feathers could easily be judged as effeminate, but I give the school of St. Peter’s props for having a mascot that is directly related to their school’s history/identity; the peacock was an early symbol of Christianity (and is still used in some regions of the world).
Contrast that with the Duke Blue Devils, a mascot which, as far as I can tell, has absolutely nothing to do with the school, the city, or the state.
Or contrast the peacock with the Ohio Buckeye. Buckeye’s are Ohio’s state tree, so points for them there, but their mascot is the tree’s seed. A seed! And this particular seed is not very interesting. It doesn’t float away on the wind, or helicopter to the ground or get ejected by some kind of explosion or springy thing. It just falls. And once on the ground, it continues to be uninteresting by just sitting there, doing nothing. At least a peacock is animate.
So there you have it, folks. I’d rather be a strutting Peacock from St. Peter’s than a good-for-nothing Buckeye from THE Ohio State University!
The Wizard of Whiteland