March Madness

What’s mad about watching college basketball? Here are my random thoughts about the tournament so far.

The Pac-12 has once again shown how underrated a conference they are. Too many of the media pundits fall in love with one line of thinking–this year that the Big Ten is by far the superior conference. Of all people to be the voice of reason–surprise, surprise, it’s Charles Barkley who said more than once that the teams out west don’t get the respect they deserve.

I’m looking for at least one Pac-12 team to make the elite eight.

I don’t fill out my brackets like everyone else. I pick winners round for round. I mean, if you don’t have the right two teams playing each other in round two, how can you possibly predict a winner?

Last night I finished the night 11-5. Like many others, I missed on New Mexico vs. Harvard. I saw the Lobos play in the Mountain West final and thought they looked impressive, but I remember UCLA losing to Princeton some years back, so I know it’s unwise to take an Ivy League team for granted. Of course, New Mexico may simply have been experiencing the letdown that naturally comes after achieving a goal. You feel relieved, not hungry.

I lost all three of my upset specials. I chose Bucknell over Butler, but Butler won by 12. Then I picked Montana over Syracuse, but by over 40 points the Orangemen demolished the Montana Grizzlies who didn’t have their leading scorer due to injury. My third miss was taking Valparaiso over Michigan St. I saw the Spartans play in their conference tournament and thought they could be upset. But it wasn’t to be. Michigan St. won by eleven.

The game I’m second guessing myself about is Pittsburgh vs. Wichita. I wanted to pick Wichita. I started to write them into my bracket, but then I remembered Pittsburgh’s reputation for tough defense. I went with the number eight seed, and I was wrong! Wichita pulled off the minor upset.

Glancing at today’s scores, it doesn’t look like I’ll fare quite as well with this half of the bracket. As long as UCLA wins, I won’t mind.

Yea, March Madness! 😀