“Don’t let success go to your head. Don’t let disappointment get to your heart.”

Kevin Durant

Almost Perfect

Now I know how the 2007 New England Patriots and their fans must have felt. Having marched inexorably up the hill of history, to do what had not been done, only to fall short at the summit. Yes, I know the 1972 Dolphins are the NFL’s only undefeated team in the Super Bowl era, but that Patriots team would have been the first to do so in a sixteen-game season. There is a reason the perfect NFL season has only been completed once. It’s hard to do. Fast forward to April 5th, 2021, with the Gonzaga Bulldogs also standing on that summit, poised to do what the UNLV teams of the early 90s could not – complete the perfect season in the 64-team tournament era. And as those who tried before had failed, so also my beloved Zags fell one game short of glory this evening.

And now here sits the wizard, haggard and bleary-eyed, running his 50-year-old fingers through his long white beard, sipping on the evening’s second cup of hot coffee – his go-to beverage of comfort – searching for the right words and some sparks of inspiration. Am I disappointed? Of course. History knocked on our door, but Baylor slammed it shut. To be honest, I think it is easier sitting here knowing that my team was simply beaten than to have to bemoan a game that was either stolen somehow or was allowed to slip away. There is no need for excuses. Baylor won in convincing fashion.

I would have preferred a competitive game, but the Bears took control early, and as they have done in every tournament game, they never relinquished it. They were bigger, stronger, faster – better in nearly every aspect of the game. And while it is fair to wonder what Gonzaga’s thrilling overtime victory over UCLA might have taken out of them, if I’m being honest, I’m not sure it would have mattered even if the Bulldogs had brought their A game. Clearly Gonzaga did not play their best, but a lot of that was due to how disruptive Baylor was. They denied the drives, denied the kick-outs, disrupted the passing lanes, and refused to let Drew Timme beat them. So congratulations to the Baylor Bears. They are true champions and deserve all the accolades that come along with their victory.

I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that Baylor’s story is as worthy of celebrating as Gonzaga’s. A program in shambles in 2003 when Scott Drew took over as coach, it has risen from the ashes of ignominy to the pinnacle of college basketball. Whilst Gonzaga has been making Sweet Sixteens or better almost every year for nearly two decades, these Bears have barely sniffed the second round, let alone a Final Four, since 1950. And it is very easy to root for Scott Drew and his Indiana connections. In case you missed it, Scott is the son of Homer Drew and brother of Bryce, and if those names sound familiar, they should. Homer coached the Valparaiso team that stunned Ole Miss in the 1998 tournament with son Bryce’s thrilling buzzer beater on a play they called Pacer. (Incidentally, it was the following year that Gonzaga made their first Elite Eight appearance under Coach Dan Monson, led by the great Matt Santangelo.) Bryce went on to coach Valpo himself from 2011 to 2016, Vanderbilt from 2016 to 2019, and now coaches for Grand Canyon who made their first appearance in the Division I tournament this year. What a terrific basketball family this is, who coach the right way, win with humility, and lose with grace. Once again, hats off to the Baylor Bears, worthy champions, indeed. They were tasked with beating the best team, and they did just that.

Random Musings From The Mind Of The Wizard

• One More Year, Please? – I hope that Jalen Suggs will reconsider doing the one-and-done dance and return for another season at Gonzaga. However, I understand it’s a business decision, and the smart people in his life will tell him to collect his millions while the getting is good. Still, with Timme being only a sophomore, wouldn’t another run be sweet?
• These Things Should Come With A Warning Label – The Bible doesn’t say what specific fruit grew on the Tree of Life in the garden, but I am certain it must have been Planters Sweet ‘N Crunchy peanuts. (Yes, I know peanuts are legumes and not technically fruit, but you know write-a the commentary, you no make-a the rules.) On second thought, maybe they were the fruit on that other tree. After all, they are so tempting, and consuming an entire can in one sitting, especially after midnight, usually leads to regret. Full disclosure: I’m about 1/4th of the way through my latest can as I write this.
• Family Makes Everything Better – Our oldest daughter and her husband joined us tonight for wings and basketball. The best part of the evening, though, was simply listening to my family engage in full-on Gonzaga fandom, screaming at the television for most of the night. This saved me the trouble of doing it myself.
• The Party Pooper Award goes to sportscaster Skip Bayless who tweeted on Saturday night, “No idea how you can call that an all time great college basketball game when it was won by a lucky shot.” Really, Skip? Forty-five minutes of the most thrilling college basketball you will ever see, and that’s your takeaway? I recommend not going near anything from or relating to Skip Bayless on Tuesday, and I am certain he will be positively insufferable with the tired old “I-told-you-so” routine. Speaking of…
• No More Whining About Gonzaga’s Soft Conference – That argument died a long time ago. Gonzaga has now been national runner up twice in the last four tournaments. Butler, as you may recall, who played in the Horizon League at the time, advanced to the national championship two years in a row. Most (not all) who follow and report on men’s college basketball now agree that there’s no such thing as “mid-majors” anymore. If Gonzaga’s conference weakness were really such a factor, they would not be regular fixtures in the Sweet Sixteen and beyond. Why I am even bringing this up is that someone told me that the topic was trending on Twitter, that great bastion of truth, how Gonzaga were proven “pretenders” via their beatdown at the hands of a power conference team. That’s a weird take given that they beat Kansas, Auburn, West Virginia, Iowa, Virginia, BYU, Oklahoma, Creighton, USC, and UCLA this year. Get over yourselves, power conference shills. Gonzaga is here to stay.
• The Captain Obvious award goes to our favorite AT&T pitchwoman Lily for her final installment of Lily Uncomplicates March Madness in which she simplifies the “buzzer beater”. “If you want to beat the buzzer, shoot earlier. It’s all about punctuality.”
• I Gotta Get Me One Of Those – I had mentioned earlier the use of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song as the soundtrack for the new all-electric Hummer EV. In the latest ads, we see that, apparently, both sets of wheels turn, allowing the vehicle to “crab walk” into tight parking spaces. While it is not clear to me how often such a function would actually be useful, just being able to show that off to your friends would be totally legit. It’s appropriate that those ads are narrated by LeBron James, because I have no doubt only he could afford one.
• OK, That Was Pretty Cool – If you missed the pre-game monologue by Mad Men’s John Hamm, it was surprisingly good, kind of like those surprisingly great rates you get from Jake from State Farm. If you would like to check it out, you can do so here. My expectations of anything coming from such Hollywood types are cynically low, I will admit, but this particular piece was on point and both a perfect retrospective on the season in spite of COVID and a preview of the game about to be played.
• The Monster Mash – I took the time to watch the latest monster flick, Godzilla vs Kong while waiting on the Final Four. Having now watched the gamut of monster movie reboots from the last six or seven years including 2014’s Godzilla, 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, 2019’s Godzilla: King of Monsters, and the aforementioned 2021’s offering, my conclusion is that I cannot keep track of who the good monsters and bad monsters are anymore.
• Can We Do This Every Year? – It was totally cool having the entire tournament in the great basketball state of Indiana. Can we do it that way every year? Minus the COVID bubble, of course.

Final Awards

Ok, enough rambling. It is time to hand out the 25th Annual Jeff’s March Madness Contest final awards.

• The Top Prognosticator award goes to the contestant who picked the most games correctly with original picks. This year’s winner is Zach Richardson with 42 correct (excluding re-picks) and finishing in 119th place. By way of comparison 2019’s winners had 52 games correct, which goes to show how crazy this year’s March Madness truly was.
• The I Love This Awesome Scoring System award goes to contest runner-up Caleb Hand whose 2nd place finish came despite picking just 26 out of 63 games correctly, re-picks included! Once again, this proves that my contest is not about picking the most games right. It is about picking the right games right.
• The I Hate This Stupid Scoring System award goes to Tom Burkholder, who despite having picked 44 games correctly (including re-picks), which was tied for second best among all contestants, finished in 78th.
• The If At First You Don’t Succeed award goes to Emily Pollastro who picked more games correctly using re-picks than anyone else with 11. Emily finished 238th overall.
• The Houston, We Have Liftoff award goes to another Emily, Emily Wuchner, who rose from 712th to finish 47th. Emily will receive a free ride on the upcoming SpaceX all-civilian space mission.
• The Biggest Loser award, sponsored by Slim Fast, goes to Luke Koebele, who suffered the largest position drop of the contest from 46th to 668th, and to Maureen Proffitt, the contestant suffering the biggest drop from the top 25 – 23rd to 627th.
• The Jane, Stop This Crazy Thing! award goes to Connie Randazzo, who was as high 26th and as low as 698th only to finally finish in 57th. Connie will receive a one-of-a-kind collectible animation frame of George Jetson.
• The A Funny Thing Happened When I Was Entering This Contest Just For The Commentary award goes to perennial contestant Amy Dailey, who texted me halfway through tonight’s game to remind me that she knows nothing about college basketball and typically finishes 400th or worse, but she discovered that she was 54th and had Baylor as her original national champion pick. Amy finished a stellar 15th, the position vacated by yours truly when Gonzaga lost.
• The Maybe You Are Trying Too Hard award goes to my daughter, Ashlyn Little, who complained this evening, “I am always trying to say funny stuff around you, but you never give me an award.” Ashlyn finished in 458th and will receive a book of Dad Jokes to help sharpen her humor skills…or at least to tell jokes that Dad thinks are funny. And while I’m on family members…
• The Don’t Patronize Me This Year award goes to my wife, Heather Little, who complained that the only mention she ever gets is the obligatory “and behind every good man is a good woman” pat on the back, love-ya-babe epilogue in the final commentary. Guilty as charged. Heather finished a respectable 108th and achieved her annual goal of beating Brad Schafer, who finished 204th and has already received at least one award and shan’t receive more.
• The I Watched All Of March Madness, And All I Got Was A Seventh Child award goes to the happy couple Jonathan and Kasiah Hand, who welcomed their seventh blessing from God into the world on National Championship Monday. Jonathan definitely benefitted from the new baby boost, finishing 17th overall. Kasiah didn’t enter this year because she was too busy giving birth…or something. I hear they named him Baylor in honor of the occasion. Nah, I’m just kidding. They named him Grant. Congratulations!
• The Rookie Of The Year award goes to Clarence “Hoosier Buddy” Todd, who finished 14th in his first year entering. As Mr. Miyagi would say, “You beginner luck.”
• The Child’s Play award would normally go to the winner of the 12 and under age bracket, but since that is 2nd place overall finisher Caleb Hand, who has already received an award, this year’s award goes to the second place finisher and cousin (I think…there are so many Hands in this stew I honestly lose track of how they are all related) Bryce Hand, who finished 10th overall and, as mentioned in a previous commentary, was rewarded with an appendectomy last week. Those Hands are spending a lot of time in the hospital, methinks.
• The Teen Queen award goes to Kris Davis, aka “colgate toothpaste for the win idc”. Kris wins the 13-19 age bracket and finished 8th overall. By the way, it is not clear to me if this Kris Davis is the same Kristen Davis who won this award in our last contest in 2019, but if so, congrats on defending your title.
• The Still Getting Used To Adulting award goes to the winner of the 20-29 age bracket, John Randazzo, who finished 3rd overall. John also gets the One That Got Away award for IGNORING (or perhaps forgetting) the re-picks. That’s right, John finished 3rd, just 18 points out of first, while making zero re-picks.
• The 30-for-30 award, sponsored by ESPN Films, goes to the winner of the 30-39 age bracket, Brenton Colton, one of the Cru Crew. Brenton finished 32nd overall and will receive a copy of my favorite episode of ESPN’s 30-for-30 film series entitled Broke.
• The Don’t Call Me Old award goes to the winner of the 40s age bracket, Brock Zagel, who finished 5th overall, which I’m fairly certain is his best finish ever. Brock also receives the Most Personally Insulting Alias award for his “Picked Baylor to Bag the Zaggs” offering. By the way, “Zags” only has one g.
• The Half A Century award goes to the winner among those in their 50s, a group both my wife and I have joined since the last contest in 2019. This year’s winner is actually the overall contest winner, and so we will give the award to the second place finisher in this age group, Todd Sample, who finished 7th overall.
• The Where’s My Hurry Cane award goes to the best finisher in the 60 and over age bracket, who finished 4th overall and, incidentally, had the best winning percentage if you include re-picks at .730, or 46 games correct.
• The I’m Going To Win This Contest Sooner Or Later goes to 6th place finisher Jason “O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A spell it with me” Snyder. See what I did there?
• The Number 9 award goes to 9th place finisher Nancy Spyksma. Nancy will receive a copy of The White Album by the Beatles.
• The annual Yellow Lines And Dead Skunks award goes to the contestant who finished exactly in the middle of the road, 367th place finisher Paul Maunu.
• The Your Reign Is Over award goes to 29th place finisher and defending champion who enjoyed an extra year’s reign thanks to COVID, Shelly Schrimpf.
• The Better Luck Next Time award goes to last place finisher Stacey Dean.
• The Hey, Respect The Stache award goes to 81st place finisher Matt Hand, who felt it necessary to use his alias to denigrate Drew Timme’s signature moustache and post-dunk celebration. It’s true they were out-muscled, but that’s beside the point. (Matt did pick Gonzaga, so that counts for something.)
• And finally, the Gold Medal, Lombardi Trophy, Claret Jug, Checkered Flag, Grand Poobah of Prognostication, Copper Fit Deluxe Mask of Glorious Victory award goes to this year’s winner, Mark Knutsen. Mark barely broke .500 in terms of winning percentage, but he collected enough bonus points from Ohio, Abilene, ORU and two wins each from Oregon State and Syracuse to put him over the top with his original pick of Baylor as national champ. Congratulations to the grand champion of the 25th anniversary edition of Jeff’s March Madness Contest.

That’s All Folks

And so ends the saga of the tournament we weren’t entirely sure we would have, but are grateful that we did. Once again, I thank you all for making this experience what it is, a fun and memorable way to share my favorite sporting event with 700+ of my closest friends. It is my sincere hope that this silly little thing, with my inane ramblings full of typos and misspellings because I’m too tired to proofread, have brought you some joy and lightened your load at the end of what has to be the toughest year many if not all of us have faced in a very long time. Thanks again to the many generous folks who contributed to the expenses of the contest. It is never expected, but always appreciated.

Until we do this again, hopefully with no masks and arenas full of screaming fans, mascots, and pep bands, may the Lord bless you all with good health, safety, and prosperity.

Warmly,

The Wizard Of Whiteland

“That was one of the best games I have ever seen.”

Jay Bilas

I have to keep this one on the short side, friends. Let’s start with Baylor vs Houston. Baylor won by like a billion. Nothing to see here. Moving on.

And then, there was the game of the night…the game of the tournament…and quite possibly, one for the ages. Prior to tip off of the Gonzaga vs UCLA instant classic, essentially every pundit, sportscaster, analyst, writer, and armchair hoops hero including yours truly said that the only chance UCLA had was to keep the game in the 60s or low 70s (everyone except, notably, Clark Kellogg, who said UCLA needed to match Gonzaga but maintain control of the game, which they essentially did). Forty-five minutes and 183 combined points later, everyone watching sat either in stunned silence and rose up in glorious disbelief as Jalen Suggs banked in a 43 foot heave at the buzzer to keep Gonzaga’s hopes of a perfect season alive for one more game. As I have revealed without apology on many occasions, I am a Gonzaga fan and apologist, and for 45 minutes, I was in agony. “Not like this,” as the famous meme quotes Switch from 1999’s The Matrix was running through my head. Not UCLA again. Then Suggs hit “that shot”, and my son Graham and I shouted so loud we scared the sleeping dog who came running to rescue us from whatever danger had surely come upon us.

I do not have all of the stats and superlatives that undoubtedly testify to the validity of the “best Final Four game ever” hype being bandied about. I do know that both teams combined to shoot a scorching 58.2% from the field, the best ever in a Final Four game except for the 1985 national championship between Villanova and Georgetown. I also know that the game had nineteen lead changes, the most of any game in the tournament this year. While I am thrilled that Gonzaga won, and will never apologize or abide an asterisk being placed on the game is if they were “lucky” to win, UCLA was just phenomenal and deserves high praise. Johnny Juzang made a believer out of me, and Cody Riley, Jaime Jaquez, and Tyger Campbell are no slouches, either. That being said, tonight belongs to Jalen Suggs, Drew Timme, Corey Kispert, and Joel Ayayi. They stand one game shy of history.

A final word on the upcoming national championship game. For all the drama we have seen in this year’s tournament, we are ending up exactly where we should, with the best two teams in college basketball, not just for this season, but perhaps for the past TWO seasons, meeting in the final contest. Both teams were poised for deep tournament runs last year before COVID canceled everything. Both teams were ranked #1 and #2 in the polls for most of the year until, again, COVID through Baylor a curveball that dropped them temporarily. In case you missed it, these two teams were supposed to play on December 5th, but again, COVID killed that appointment. So, here we are, a literal date with destiny. It doesn’t always happen that the best two teams play for the championship. It is that nature of any tournament format. But this year, they will. Neither school has ever won a national championship, though both have played for one. For Baylor it was 1948, a year after my parents were born when the tournament had just eight teams. For Gonzaga, the memory is much more recent, when they lost to UNC in 2017. A win for Gonzaga will make them the only undefeated champion in the 64-team era and the first since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers did it in a 32-team field. Buckle up, friends. It should be a good one.

Quick Awards

• The Masked Singer “Take It Off” award goes to Emilia Grunden, who has obviously been reading the commentary and used her alias to reveal her true identity, or, at least, her first name. Emilia spent a long time in first, but alas, she has been failed by UCLA and Arkansas, and her glorious ride has come to an end.
• The Watching These Games Would Be Boring Without You Texting Me Non-Stop award goes to my good friend Brad Schafer, who entered the contest as Avedis Zildjian for reasons known only to him, and sent me such gems as these during tonight’s games.
  • “Am tired of fawn boy and werewolf babe” – referring to the cherry-vanilla and orange-vanilla Coca-Cola commercials featuring the halloweenish characters.
  • “FWIW we used to have a sheep named Clarice” – said in response to the ubiquitous ads for the series Clarice, based on the chief protagonist from the film The Silence Of The Lambs. How apropos.
• The Call Tech Support award goes to Brock Zagel, who alerted me of an issue with the website loading the Overall Standings report VERY SLOWLY shortly after the Gonzaga game concluded. I noticed, and it seems to be ok now, though I have no idea what the problem was. Brock sits in 30th and hopes to beat the Wizard on the back of his pick of Baylor over Gonzaga. The Wizard is sore displeased.
• The Agony Of Defeat award goes to two, and there were only two – out of 733, contestants who picked UCLA to advance to the national championship game with their original picks. Those two sad contestants are Tim Miles and Isabel Snyder. That UCLA win would have given them 48 points each, which would have put Tim in first place and Isabel in the top 10. To quote the guy from the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials, NOT SORRY.
• And finally, the I Hope This Makes You Feel Better award goes to contest leader and recent recipient of an appendectomy, Bryce Hand. Bryce, it turns out, is trying to make some history of his own, becoming the first two-time champion of Jeff’s March Madness Contest.

Ok, minions. I wish you all a happy and blessed Resurrection Day, and I will see you again on Monday night for the final commentary and awards.