>> I think that if KU can get out of the first round, they have a chance to make a run. KU getting that matchup with NDSU was so predictable it was stupid. The March Madness Gods would like nothing more than for KU to lose that game. After I get bragging rights from the title last year, what better way to knock me back down to Earth than losing to NDSU, the first time they're ever in the tourney. Why do you think that NDSU is the first 14 seed to have FUCKING HOME COURT ADVANTAGE IN THE FIRST ROUND? If that's not the March Madness Gods at work, then I don't know what is. I think I'm more scared of NDSU than Michigan St., if that makes any sense. I suppose these are the residual scars left from the Bucknell/Bradley disasters...scars that not even a national championship can heal. Holy F, if KU loses to NDSU....I don't want to talk about it anymore.***
>> As much as I hate to say it, I think North Carolina has a good chance to walk to the title. I thought before the year that they had a chance to go undefeated, and obviously that didn't happen, as a combination of injuries and underachieving cost them a couple of wins. If Ty Lawson is healthy, even without Marcus Ginyard, this is the most talented team BY FAR. My only hope is that Ol' Roy does what he likes to do when he has ridiculously talented teams: choke. At least one thing's for sure...he'll cry at the post-game press conference.
>> After Carolina, I don't really think there's a great team anywhere else in the field. It's a far cry from last year, when all four 1 seeds were legitimately great teams. All the other top seeds this year are extremely flawed (I do really like Oklahoma, so it figures that they are in the same region as Carolina. That has been my championship game since early December.) So, one would think that this would be a crazy, upset-filled tourney, a la 2006....the only problem is, I don't think many of the mid-to-lower seeds are that great either. So basically I have no idea what to do with these brackets (particularly the Midwest, where I think Louisville, Michigan St., and KU are all begging to be upset....but by who?)
>> Teams that could win a couple games, but I'm probably too scared to pick: Texas, USC, Ohio St./Siena, and Western Kentucky.
>> Teams that could win a bunch of games, but I'm probably too scared to pick: Purdue, Wake Forest, UCLA, FSU, West Virginia.
>> Teams that I don't like as much as most other people, for no good reason: Villanova, Memphis, Louisville, Michigan St.
>> Teams that I like more than other people, for no good reason: Purdue, Oklahoma, FSU, Ohio St.
>> Potential matchups that I really want to see:
- Carolina/Oklahoma (for my money, the two best teams in the country when they're healthy)
- Missouri/Memphis (would be a wild, wild game between the two teams I hate the most)
- Duke/VCU (Greg Paulus' worst nightmare....nevermind, Paulus doesn't play anymore)
- KU/West Virginia (only because this would mean that KU got out of the first round. I really can't stress enough how scared I am of this game. If KU wins by 20, then you can all have a good laugh at my expense for being so worried; but until then, I'm preparing for the worst.)
>> It's official, I have a new least favorite team: Memphis. Not Duke, not Missouri, not Carolina, not Tupac's team in the All-City Shootout from Above the Rim that punches people during games and shoots them after losses. I think John Calipari is pretty much the antichrist. I'm tired of hearing him whine and bitch all the time about not getting respect; I'm tired of him saying that Conference USA is good when it is AN INDISPUTABLE FACT that it is awful; I'm tired of him getting every stud recruit every year (he's already got the #2 and 3 recruits next year, and there's a good shot he gets #1. That is ridiculous) and I'm tired of him deflecting criticism and shifting blame when his teams melt down in close games. Somebody please knock them out of the tournament early.
>> So, my unofficial Final Four, which will probably change a bunch of times, all the way up until Thursday morning: North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, and Purdue. I've already done a million different drafts, and there will be a few more before time is up. You know that scene in Happy Gilmore where Adam Sandler pulls a hockey puck out of his pocket, and Virginia asks him if he always carries a puck around, and Happy says yeah and gives her a look like well yeah, why wouldn't I....that's me with a tournament bracket from Selection Sunday til the tourney starts.
*** OK, maybe I do want to talk about it some more. Most annoying subplot of KU playing NDSU: everybody down here in Lawrence asking me, as a native of North Dakota, who I'm cheering for. The first thing people don't realize (and seem to have trouble understanding even after I explain it to them) is that I DID NOT GRADUATE FROM NDSU. I know that North Dakota is a small state, and nobody knows anything about it (or cares) but try to consider that there is more than one university in the entire state (!!!) and this one happens to be my alma mater's hated rival. When I tell them that I didn't go to NDSU, they give me a puzzled look, and say something like "Oh. I thought you said you were from North Dakota." Unbelievable. It's like, I have these conversations like this, regularly, with people all over the country, and yet WE have the reputation as the idiotic backwoods hicks. Fucking Coen Brothers just haaaad to make Fargo.
(On that note, there is a downright shocking number of UND graduates that are cheering for NDSU. I know some of them are just my friends breaking my balls, but the vast majority are actually cheering for them, and they should be ashamed of themselves. I don't care if it's their first time in the tourney, or that they're "putting NoDak basketball on the map." Our school hates their school and vice versa. You don't cheer for them, no matter the circumstances. They sure as hell wouldn't cheer for us. When the Russians launched Sputnik into space in the '50s, did America sit back and cheer them on and say "Good for them, they're putting planet Earth on the map"??? No. We got our asses into gear, started throwing billions of dollars into NASA, and had our own dudes strolling around on the moon 10 years later. Suck on that, Comrades.)
And just so we're clear, if there was a basketball team that rolled out a starting five of my mom, my dad, my brother, and twin orphans who were both dying and their Make-a-Wish was to win just one game in March Madness- and Jesus Christ Himself was their 6th man (averaging a tidy little 11-6-4 and doing all the little things off the bench)- and they were playing KU in the tourney....I would still cheer for the Jayhawks. I'm glad that's settled. Rock chalk.
