March. The month home to spring break, spring training, and
the greatest three weeks in sports. Every year in March the NCAA puts on the
greatest tournament in all of sports. This Thursday will begin a 64 team race
to the city of Houston, Texas. College basketball experts, fans, professional
athletes, actors, actresses, plumbers, hedge fund managers, teachers, students,
moms, dads, grandpas, and grandmas; everyone has a bracket and everyone wants
their bracket to be the best.
This
tournament is everything every other sport tries to emulate, but just can’t
quite get that same pulse. The Super Bowl is close, but still doesn’t have this
same mass appeal. It’s easy to pick between two teams playing one game, heck
you could just flip a coin if you weren’t really sure who to pick. Granted, you
could flip a coin through your entire bracket, but that’s just lazy and boring.
March Madness allows you to create your own wild and outlandish calculation,
like a mad scientist in his laboratory. That’s what creates the mystique around
these three weeks. It’s the fact that anyone can fill out a bracket, and look
like the expert. The casual on looker can keep a mild temper on the NCAA
landscape and still come out looking like a Las Vegas odds maker.
To us
college hoops fans, this is our Christmas. We all have our team we follow
closer than others, but it’s a sport where to love our team, we need to keep
our eyes peeled to the entire landscape. Talking college basketball with a
college basketball fan is a different kind of conversation. Much like the cult
of hockey, there is a cult in college hoops. Diehard college hoops fans can
tell you about the kid from Nobody St. who is a redshirt freshman in the Summit
League who could possibly take over its first round game against a national
powerhouse (Mike Daum – SDSU Jackrabbits). We can show you what it means to
hate (30 for 30 – I Still Hate Christian Laettner) or we can show you how to
love the tournament (Ron Hunter with son RJ Hunter last March).
I am not going to break down every single game here – but I
will give you my Final Four and champion. I am in a variety of pools, filling
out numerous brackets (which my girlfriend is against – she is a one bracket kind
of gal). But every bracket has ended up with 3 of 4 following teams ending up
in Houston.
Final Four
Kansas vs Oklahoma
North Carolina vs
Michigan State
National Championship
Kansas VS North
Carolina
National Champion – and it pains me to say this…
North Carolina Tar
Heels
Yes folks, I know I dogged them all year. Hell, I dog them
every year, but this team is peaking right now, at a time when many considered
them to be the odds on favorite at the start of the year. This is a classic Roy
Williams team with strong and smart Point Guard play from Marcus Paige. Bryce
Johnson and company are showing range and athleticism down on the blocks – with
great play from wingman Justin Jackson. It truly does pain me to make this
prediction. But I think they are the best team right now, primed and ready to
make a run to a (gulp) 6th National Championship. Dammit.
The next three weeks are a magical time for fans of the game and casual fans alike. We are all experts and we are all amateurs. It’s a spectacle that everyone can appreciate, biting their nails in anticipation of their pick upsetting the favorite, getting to be the person who says I told you so. Your bracket is the ultimate “in your face” to people you beat. This event comes back every March, and it feels like every year it’s getting more and more competitive, so enjoy it. Chances are you are going to see and feel something that is going to make your heart skip a beat with excitement.