No Bracket, so it's Meh...

Ramblings Post #411
I once opined that the least racist person in America is a football fan on Saturday Night in the south when their team is down by four with two minutes left. At that moment, if they think you can score a touchdown and get the W, they don't care what color you are. I stand by that statement.  

This year I could not spare the hours of research, player evaluation, game simulation and consideration of all of the other endless variables (height, weight, shoe size, major, beard or clean shaven) required to confidently construct a bracket that reflected my expectations for this years March Madness. Yeah, that sounds good. It's better than the truth, in that because I usually throw one together in five minutes based upon a) how impressive the team was in the mid-90s b) if I recognize the college c) if the mascot is cool and d) if my bracket needs some upset razzle-dazzle. And this year I just forgot. I remembered, but again because of my aforementioned well-honed and time-tested methodology I thought I could just do it later. I was wrong.

via the ESPN

Looking at the final four....wait, this is the Final Four? Like for the NCAA? Seriously? This looks like it would have popped out of a 2K version of March Madness, not actually happened. Theoretically, we all the love the Cinderella story, but damn. A couple FIVE seeds? A NINE seed? Was the selection committee on that Henny while setting up the brackets? We sure this isn't for baseball? Wait, if this is the final four, what the hell happened? 

I have to ask because this time around, because I didn't have any virtual skin in the game, I did not feverishly tune in. Or even really casually tune in. ... I suddenly realize why they make the brackets a thing. In any case, my usual situation would have been a pizza and/or some wings and few beers on Thursday and Friday, flipping between channels, catching snippets of a game here, listening to an announcer's thirty second history lesson of player 143, watching the drama unfold. Good game? I'm locked in. Game getting tight? I'm there. Upset alert? Changing channels now. This year? I think I watched Maine Cabin Masters. Due to some flooding and rot they put in new floors for this family retreat on one of the lakes, and tried to save the cabinets but eventually had to replace them. No, I'm not getting old. Maybe. But I wasn't watching basketball.

And I like sports. You know this. Maybe it's because I'm not as active as I could be I'm not into as much lately. Or maybe it's because I'm not into them I'm not active? In any case maybe it's because the NFL season never really ended with the Lamar Jackson shenanigans sucking up all the sports news oxygen in the room. Or that college basketball hadn't ever really been my thing. I like the pros, play the full 48 min games in whole seasons for 2k, can actually watch soccer and enjoy it, and on more than a few occasions stumbled across a sport, learned the basic rules and caught up in the drama in a matter of thirty minutes. And I'm supposed to be more social this year. So why did I miss this year's Madness? Dunno.

Barkeep. A gin and tonic. No, I have no idea why. No, I don't actually want one either. Just some juice.