Tournament Hangover: Tournament Review (1ST Week)

I’m finally recovering from my 4 day bender. Unfortunately for my cool rating, none of the 4 days involved drinking, just march madness. I didn’t have a single drink during any of the games, yet I’ve felt viciously hung over the last two days.* This is mainly because I work the graveyard shift and averaged about 3 ½ hours of sleep from Thursday to Sunday. Anyhow, this may have been the best opening weekend ever, a whole lot of sh*t went down, so no more fluff, let’s go straight into a full (sort of) review of the weekend that was.

What We Learned:
- The Big 10 Sucks: Yes I too was suckered in by this horrifically overrated conference. I had Iowa going to the finals, Ohio and Michigan State going to the Elite 8, ect. ect. But as it turned out, the league just sucked, badly. I’m not sure how I feel about the B10’s flame out. As a former visiter to the Midwest I love it because 9 out of10 Midwesterners are overly cocky, so I enjoy the thought of them just stewing in the collective shellacking their conference took. And every year I pick Iowa to go far in the tournament and they also lose in the 1st weekend. Honestly it’s becoming one of my favorite march traditions. But mark my words, next time I don’t pick Iowa to go far there going to go to the Final Four. The B10’s collapse did kill my bracket, but that’s the beauty of march.
- I’m part genius, part idiot, more so of the latter: Despite Al Skinner’s best efforts, his uber talented BC team escape a first round scare and big Al finally made it to his first Sweet 16. Other then putting to much stock in the Big Ten I feel pretty good about my bracket. I may have put too many cinderellas in, or just chose the wrong ones. I just wish I had gone with gut. In the first bracket I filled out I got 12 of 16 of Sweet 16 right and have all my final four picks still alive. To quote Frank Black “Stupid Me.”
- Parity: Parity maybe the best thing to happen to college basketball since March Madness. On the other hand it makes for a sh*tty NFL.
- Brandon Roy might be the best player in college. As that Washington team has no right to be still playing. In all honesty it wouldn’t shock me to see Roy actually making it a game against the other Huskies.
- If Gus Johnson does any of the regional semifinal games CBS may need to use a horse tranquilizer to calm him down before the games. (For more of what I’m talking about see quote of the week.)
- If George Washington could make any shot they might still be playing: I got only 3 hours of sleep so I could watch George Washington attempt to upset Duke. What I was so was what I assume had to be the only single digit field goal percentage in NCAA history. All joking aside GW missed at least 24 shots that I’ve seen 5 year-olds with autism hit. Just an awful showing by the Colonials.**
- Give it up for Coach K and Duke: Who keep find new ways to make people hate them. Seriously I’m impressed. And, incidently, I also want to buy a Chevy.
- Illinois Fans are insane: What can I say, Karma/Revenge is a bitch, and a dish best served cold. Illini fans are whining to anyone who will listen that they got jobbed by the refs, as evidenced by Washington’s 38-19 free throw shooting edge. Instead of chuckling at the irony of all this I’ll instead point out why Washington shot more free throws. Illinois entire offense, outside of Augustine, is completely based on jump shooting, where as 85% of Washington’s is based on slashing. Based on pure logic the Huskies are going to go to line far more often then the Illini. It just goes to show that only bad things happen when your teams mascot is degrading an Indian tribe.
- I was going to have a best games section, but I could think of ten amazing ones of the top of my head, and knew that it would be way too much work.
- Gonzaga can win with out Adam Morrison playing his best: If I’m Ben Howland watching a tape of this game I’m probably shitting myself as I realize just how good Gonzaga is as a team this year. Also the fact that after a bad game Morrison is bound to go off against the Bruins.

And now on to next weekend:
- First let me say that next weekend will be worse then this last one, and not just because my teams out (more on this later). At least half of the 20 games that are played this weekend are going to have to go down to the final minute in order to compare with last weekend. So don’t get your hopes up.
- My “new” final four: With only three of my FF picks left, I’m going with my original gut shot bracket choices: Duke, UCLA, ‘NOVA and UCONN.
Fearless Predictions: UCLA-Gonzaga will be the best game of the tourney, whoever wins is going to the final four. Despite the huge advantage in talent and atletism, Texas will fall to West Virginia. West Virginia will get a big lead on Duke before blowing the game by going cold from outside.
-Who to Root For: Of course the underdogs, West Virginia: The only team left that can use the always fun white-out***, Pac-10/West Coast Teams: Like the Underdogs, this ones obvious and Villinova: After they got bumped out last year on the worst traveling call ever, they could use a run to the final four this year, in fact I think the NCAA owes it to them, as evidenced by the hardest teams in their bracket were an under achieving U of A team and two teams coached by Al Skinner and Billy Donovan.

Quote of the Week:
“How did he find the courage to take that shot?” – Gus Johnson after Chris Lofton’s desperation shot went in with .4 seconds left ot give his team a two point lead.
First off all Gus, you have a silly first name and your last name is a euphemism for a penis. Secondly, there’s nothing courageous about playing sports, absolutely nothing. Gutsy maybe, but nothing courageous. And he took the shot because there was only 3 seconds left so he had to shoot, so I’m not even sure if his shot was gutsy, it was just necessary.

The Obligatory Arizona Section:
What can I say, it sure feels good to have our dignity back. For a program of Arizona’s stature you almost never get moral victory, but the U of A did on Sunday. They played one of the top 3 teams in the country and it took them to the final seconds. All in all just a great game by the Cats, who went out guns blazing, which was about all you could ask for with this team. My only problems were that it took the Cats 31 games to decide to finally start listening to Lute and that if you replace Daniel Dillion’s (and most of C-Rod’s) minutes with Jawann McClean this is a final four team, at least with the way they were playing at the end of the season. Anyhow, I was actually proud of the effort the U of A showed this weekend and next year is looking real bright for us. Speaking of next year, in this same space next week I’ll give you a small preview of Arizona’s 06-07 season. Woot.

And now before we finish here’s a few random tidbits and thoughts I gathered over the weekend:
- Best Commercials: Big Buckin’ Chicken (deserves, and may get, it’s own post.), Burger King’s Whopper Jr.: Great idea, pretty funny execution. Props to BK for putting out some of the funniest commercials out there. In fact I may actually dedicate a whole post to Bk’s new commercials. Army: The with the father in son sitting on the porch, which has this dialogue in it:
Father: You’re a changed man.
Son: How do you figure that?
Father: When you got off that train you did two things you’ve never done before, least not at the same time. You shook my hand and you looked me right in the eye. Where’d you learn that?
Cut to army logo.
Kills me every time. Ignore the fact that the father and son don’t hug after he returns from at least a month long absence from boot camp, or the fact that he was clearly beating his son before he left, and this is still a great, moving commercial. Well done Army, well done.
- Worst Commercials: Applebees Giligan’s Island song: I’d rather have colon cancer**** then have to see this commercial again. Just gawd awful. Honestly who’s the f*ck-wit he green lighted this thing? Cingular: The commercial where the Asian guy is continually sh*tting on the white guy. Put race aside for a second and ask yourself this, why is the white guy still friends with the Asian guy? First off he’s Asian, a huge minus in my book. And secondly the only dialogue they have is based on the Asian guy ripping the white guy for not having a cell phone. If I was the white guy in this commercial I’d punch the other guy in the face, say something to the effect of “Who’s the bitch now?” or “B*tch you don’t know who the f*ck I am!”, stump him a few times and then walk away and never speak to him again. Man I hate that commercial.
- Despite the fact the album was boring an uninspired, when you’re listening to the radio for an entire 8 hour shift and Fix You by Coldplay comes on, it sounds like salvation.
- One last thing, Big Love, the new HBO show, is awesome. Just wanted to get on the bandwagon before everyone else did. Woot.