Ramblings Post #220
Every year there is the ritual. We seek guidance and direction, hoping that the path we choose will lead us to a place of comfort...and victory in the office pool. Yes, I'm talking about College Basketball, March Madness, and all the joy and heartbreak that it contains.
To pick three #12 seeds beating #5 seeds as upsets would have been the height of insanity...before this years tourney. Oregon beat Oklahoma St, Ole Miss beat Wisconsin, and California beat UNLV. Throw in the #14 ranked Harvard knocking out a #3 seed and I doubt anyone without 42 different brackets is doing anywhere near decent. The Boom! La Salle takes out Kansas State and that bracket is hanging on by a thread.
Wait, how much time is on the clock in Georgetown game? Who is Florida Gulf Coast? Oh, the guys who just beat the #2 seed and now that bracket is wobbly as well. If Southern's near cataclysmic take down of #1 seeded Gonzaga had actually happened, I would have turned off my TV and called it a wrap. My only consolation is that nobody saw all of THAT coming. At least nobody I know. That Gonzaga actually lost in the second round, well, one of my boys actually called that one...but nobody believed him at the time.
I have actually won a pool in the past, my picks apparently just a little bit more fortuitous than everyone else's, but this year has proved to be especially vexing. Not because I'm a great college basketball fan (I'm not), but because conventional wisdom has not only gone out the window, it's gone down the street, caught a bus to the airport and is currently drinking rum on the beach in St. Croix. And apparently no one in ESPN over eight million strong player base had anything even close to this outcome.
Kinda makes me thinks sports really are America's last place where the underdog can triumph. Oh, wait, Har-vhud. Yeah, right.
Every year there is the ritual. We seek guidance and direction, hoping that the path we choose will lead us to a place of comfort...and victory in the office pool. Yes, I'm talking about College Basketball, March Madness, and all the joy and heartbreak that it contains.
To pick three #12 seeds beating #5 seeds as upsets would have been the height of insanity...before this years tourney. Oregon beat Oklahoma St, Ole Miss beat Wisconsin, and California beat UNLV. Throw in the #14 ranked Harvard knocking out a #3 seed and I doubt anyone without 42 different brackets is doing anywhere near decent. The Boom! La Salle takes out Kansas State and that bracket is hanging on by a thread.
Wait, how much time is on the clock in Georgetown game? Who is Florida Gulf Coast? Oh, the guys who just beat the #2 seed and now that bracket is wobbly as well. If Southern's near cataclysmic take down of #1 seeded Gonzaga had actually happened, I would have turned off my TV and called it a wrap. My only consolation is that nobody saw all of THAT coming. At least nobody I know. That Gonzaga actually lost in the second round, well, one of my boys actually called that one...but nobody believed him at the time.
I have actually won a pool in the past, my picks apparently just a little bit more fortuitous than everyone else's, but this year has proved to be especially vexing. Not because I'm a great college basketball fan (I'm not), but because conventional wisdom has not only gone out the window, it's gone down the street, caught a bus to the airport and is currently drinking rum on the beach in St. Croix. And apparently no one in ESPN over eight million strong player base had anything even close to this outcome.
Kinda makes me thinks sports really are America's last place where the underdog can triumph. Oh, wait, Har-vhud. Yeah, right.
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