“I don’t eat fast food often, but I love tacos. I could write prophetically about how perfect the taco is.”

Ken Baumann

Life, Liberty, and The Love of Tacos

It was another great day of hoops featuring several upsets, a couple of first time winners, and the world’s largest taco…sort of. Read on for this year’s round one wrap up.

• Things I will not be watching in March, 2019: When we were newly married, my wife, Heather, was looking for college basketball on the TV on a night that, unbeknownst to her, the tournament had not yet begun. This was before all of the play-in silliness started, mind you. Coming across a game in the post-season NIT, she asked, “NIT? What’s the NIT?” After a brief but perfectly timed comedic pause she exclaimed, “Not In the Tournament!” Exactly. Sorry, Indiana fans, but the NIT will not be discussed here. I won’t be watching. Add to that list the latest predictably doomed experiment in forming an professional American football league to compete with the NFL, the Alliance of American Football. Like its predecessors, the USFL and XFL, this ragtag collection of football has-beens, rejects, and wannabes will take its place on the ash heap of sports history with only an ESPN 30 for 30 film to remind us of its existence. Speaking of football…
• If Liberty University had a football program, #0 Myo Baxter-Bell could play left tackle. (Well, actually at 6′ 5″ and 255 lbs, he’s way too small to play O-Line in the FBS, but Liberty is a small school, after all, so…) He’s a wide body and a key contributor to Liberty’s first-ever NCAA tournament victory, one of three wins by a 12 seed in this year’s bracket. Incidentally, this is the first time three 12’s have advanced in the same tournament in five years. Speaking of firsts…
• Top seeds get another minor scare. For the first time in tournament history, two 16 seeds led games at the half on the same day. Neither went on to victory like last year’s UMBC. Thus, the web masters for Gardner-Webb and Iona need not fear their servers being crashed this evening by overwhelming traffic from people trying to figure out who they are.
• The bigger they come, the harder they Fall. Tacko Fall, that is, the 7′ 6″ (you read that right – the man is actually seven-and-a-half feet tall), size 22 shoe wearing, sleeps in two beds pushed together, can’t find clothes big enough to fit him, showers on his knees phenom from the University of Central Florida with the, hands down, best name in basketball. I had this amusing exchange via text with Mrs. Little this evening relating to the big man. Heather: “Ok fav player UCF Tacko Fall”. Jeff: “Yes! He’s awesome.” Heather: “As are all tacos.” Seriously, the man is just enormous. The TV broadcast showed a still image of him standing between the 5′ 2″ Tracy Wolfson, who barely comes to his waist, and the not-small-at-all 6′ 8″ Grant Hill, whom he also dwarfs. Fall is a computer science major, which makes me love him all the more.
• Ban the free time outs. Is it just me, or are this year’s officials becoming increasingly anal-retentive over how much time ought to be on the game clock, especially after stoppages happening in the final minute? In the games I watched it seemed as though the zebras were constantly going to the monitor to put anywhere from a few seconds to a few tenths of a second back on the clock. Now, I’m all for accuracy in the era of super slow motion instant replay, but the problem with this practice is that it provides what amounts to a free time out to both teams. This can be significant. In at least one game I watched, such a situation arose at a point where neither team had a time out remaining, and yet there they were, at their respective benches going over strategy with their coaches. If the NCAA is really committed to the officials going through this Doctor Strange time adjustment routine several times a game, the players on the floor should be sent to opposite corners away from their benches where they can talk among themselves but not with their coaching staff. Get with the program, NCAA. No more freebies!
• Do you know the way to San Jose? This particular site provided plenty of drama and bonus points, with the first three games all being won by double-digit seeds.
• The B1G (pronounced “Big Ten” for reasons known only to folks like Prince who adopt weird symbols in place of actual names and expect us to know what we are supposed to call them) is now 7-1 thanks to Ohio State’s semi-surprising victory over Iowa State. Big Ten apologists will use this as evidence to support their assertion that the B1G (there’s that weird symbol again) is the strongest conference in the country. Indiana fans will use it to justify their offense at the Hoosiers omission from the tournament field.
• 18 inches of nope: I have always loved those clever Allstate commercials with the actor who plays the incarnation of Mayhem. This year’s newest installment has Mayhem taking on the form of a basketball goal in which he describes himself as “18 inches of nope”. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than in the UCF–VCU game where the score was 5-2 nearly seven minutes in. I wonder if Mayhem watches March Madness with his incarnate pals Death, Famine, and War. I heard Thanos was there, too, but Death sent him out for chips and dip.

Round One Awards

I know I implied that the best alias awards would be given tonight, but seeing that it is 2:21 AM EDT, and sensing the fog of exhaustion settling over my heavy eyelids, those will have to wait until I have both the time and energy to judge the creative wit of hundreds of minions. Until then, have a banana and enjoy these round one awards.

• The I Hate This Stupid Scoring System award, self-awarded via his alias, goes to Gavin Hand, who incredibly picked 31 out of 32 round one games correctly! That’s right – he missed just a single game. The problem for Gavin is that the game he missed, UC Irvine’s victory over Kansas State, was worth 10 points total thanks to the upset bonus. This puts him in eighth place, not first.
• The Dirty Dozen award, given in honor of the three 12 seeds that won in the first round, goes to the contestants who picked all 12 (yes, that’s ironic) first round upsets correctly: Tim Warren, Billy Brundage, Chad Wright, Dave Barndt, Adams Drew (did you reverse your first and last names in the entry form?), Don Townsend, John Hart, Paul Smith, Kip Layman, and Matthew Hickey.
• Kip Layman also gets the Career Counselor award for advising me to quit my day job and become a sports writer. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I think I will stick with what I know and keep this as a hobby.
• The Hope Springs Eternal award goes to Sydney “I lost last year hopefully not this year” McDaniel, who is, indeed, not in last place…barely.
• The You Know That Strategy Never Works award goes to Matthew Hickey, who, true to his annual tradition, picked the upset for all 32 games. This puts him in a tie for 49th, but there’s nowhere to go but down from there.
• The I Might Beat You, But I Will Never Cheat You award goes to yours truly thanks to my current position of third place. First, I am way too invested in the integrity of this contest to rig it in my favor, so put those thoughts out of your head. Second, I have never won my own contest in 23 tries so far, so give me the benefit of the doubt.
• The First Runner Up award goes to second place contestant Giuseppe DiIulio. If Steve Harvey were running this contest, you would be in first.
• The You Ignored The Rules But I Will Let It Slide Since You Are Doing So Well award goes to Lizzy Randomly Picking who failed to enter her actual last name in the entry form. Tisk tisk, Lizzy, but if you really did pick randomly, your 15th place ranking says something about how much of this contest is luck versus strategy.
• The Look On The Bright Side, Your Final Four Are All Still Alive award goes to last place contestant Stevie Cooper. Hang in there, Stevie. You likely will not remain in last for long.
• And finally, the Leader In The Clubhouse award goes to first place contestant Billy Brundage, who not only has a terrifically performing bracket, but also a name that is totally fun to say!

That’s it for now, minions. Time for a little battery recharge before today’s games give us the first half of the Sweet Sixteen and our next edition of the commentary. Until then, I bid you good night.

The Wizard of Whiteland

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