The ball is tipped
and there you are
you're running for your life
you're a shooting star
OK, lame lyrics aside the NCAA Hoops Tournament give me a lot to look forward to every year, and always delivers. And not just the money for the pools. Or the polarizing it does in workplaces everywhere. Here's why I'm psyched about the 2008 edition of March Madness.
10) I'm not allowed to use March Madness, and neither are you!!!!
The NCAA (much like the rest of us, probably), got sick and tired of every car dealer having "March Madness", and decided to leave the crazy, short, pasty, crusty, awkward, unoriginal white guys in a massive lurch. How else can there where unis and hiked up striped gym socks? Do we really need to know that a car dealership is dunking on the competition? Do we care that furniture store is taking it to the hoop for savings? NO! Thank you NCAA for learning about trademarks and quashing these stupid efforts of mental debris!!!
9) The "My Team" Bandwagon.
This goes out to those non-committal fans who refuse to say who they root for until the Final Four. And then they have been a North Carolina fan all of their lives. Hey, whatever makes you feel better about yourself. I have one of these at work. Favorite college football team: Ohio State; college hoops: North Carolina. B'What?!?!?!?! I used to hate this. But now I really enjoy it. It hilarious to see these people in action. In college, there was a guy where the joke stuck that his four favorite teams always made the Final Four, every single year! He always seemed to have some bizarre connection to every good team in the tournament.
8) Homerism.
Different than the "My Team" bandwagon. It is where a Kentucky fan picks Kentucky to win the entire tournament, when they probably won't make it out of the first round. High comedy. PLEASE ENTER MY POOL!!!! I'M BEGGING! Seriously, it's OK to fill out one bracket in one tournament saying that you think that UMBC will win the tournament, but in every bracket?
7) All hoops, all the time.
No matter where you go during the first weekend of the tournament, hoops will be on. Wedding: hoops. Funeral: hoops. Child's birth: hoops. Divorce proceedings: hoops. Prison execution: hoops. Work: hoops. Speeding violation: hoops. Monastery: hoops. Hanging out with "The Gimp" from Pulp Fiction: hoops. You can't get away from it, and nor should you. This is the World Cup, but the American version. Thursday and Friday of the first week should be half-days anyway because nobody actually give 100% at work in those afternoons, they are taking 2-hour lunches and feverishly hitting "refresh" on internet browsers look for an update.
And if you are one of those people that sees this as childish or a waste of time. You are missing a soul!
6) Brackets.
Favorites only? Favorite colors only? Where you'd rather live? Mascot fight? Coach fight? Alma Maters? Where your kids go? Coin flips? Doesn't matter, fill them out and enjoy! For three weeks, I do not not have my brackets with me, highlighting and crossing out winners and losers.
5) Hating Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg, and Billy Packer
Jim Nantz would rather call The Masters or the NFL, it's obvious, but he's got to do the tournament too. He fakes it really well, but you can tell that he rather be sneaking on to Augusta for a courtesy round instead of watching these games while sitting next to the Dick-Vitale-hating-machine himself, the bitter, angry Billy Packer. Packer hates that Vitale and Bill Raftery and EVERY SINGLE OTHER COLOR COMMENTATOR is liked more than he is. So instead of trying to make himself more likable, he just decides to make himself more of an asshole. And he add 5-10% more asshole every single year. Maybe he's frustrated because he's kicking it to Clark Kellogg who for the past ten years has not been able to find camera two. He keeps looking at Greg Gumbel instead of the camera. And for some reason this is OK each year. Let's fit him with a shock collar so that when he turns to talk to Greg, he gets a buzz. Illegal? Yes. Unfair? Probably. Hilarious? Hell yeah!!!!
4) The selling out of Dick Vitale
Dick Vitale is a man who pitches for a lot of things. Fighting Cancer (awesome). Staying in School (awesome). Not going to NBA until you are ready (awesome). Being highly caffeinated 24 hours per day (awesome). Having your own lingo (scrumptrilecent). DiGiorno Pizza (OK, I guess, if you have to pitch SOMETHING). Hooters (Come ON! REALLY?!?!?!?!). That's just not him. And even if Dickie V has some dirty old man in him, he shouldn't be flying this flag that high. I almost wish that Vitale got on the air and said that he has an evil twin, Nick Vitale, out to sully his image, hence the Hooters ads.
3) Loving Gus Johnson, Seth Davis, Bill Raftery, Jay Bilas, and Greg Gumbel
Gus Johnson makes every game sound special. That's a gift, in this day and age. He plays to the crowd and to the moment. Seth Davis' brains have brains when talking about college hoops. I'm not normally a fan of Greg Gumbel, but he does a great job taking and giving control for three weekends. And I finally figured out how Jay Bilas gets away from ESPN to go to CBS for one weekend: he's a lawyer, he probably declared himself a corporation and loans himself out as a consultant; brilliant (and needed). Bill Raftery is an original. He had his own lingo, he adds to replays, he makes games exciting, he's the anti-Packer!
2) The invasion of the white guys at the end of the bench...
Everyone loves an upset. And why not? Even if you are in a bracket trying to win cash, you can't help but to get swept up in the upset, and rooting for a #14 to knock off a #3. It's fun. And the best is when the cameras show the white guys at the end of the bench, who have gotten a total of 3 minutes to play all season. And they are going crazy on every play. Their most popular moves are: 1) jumping up and down when a big shot is hit; 2) sitting arms locked together during crucial free throws; 3) boxing each other out so no one gets called for a technical foul while they are getting excited (because a ref would call that during that point in a game, whatever); 4) sprinting on to the court to mob teammates to celebrate an upset victory.
It is equal parts: hilarious, endearing, movie-like, and fun.
1) No more Joakim Noah.
Joakim Noah replaced Christian Laettner as "The least manly looking basketball player that we are being forced to look at way too much and have gotten to the point where we've run jokes for him or creative ways to question his sexuality" award. To make matters worse, we had to look at him for two straight years because Florida won the title for two years in a row. If he came back for his senior year, I might have boycotted watch the tournament, because his primal yells were pre-pubescent (and all too frequent), CBS LOVED showing him on camera, he looks like Denise Huxtable, and his famous parents looked like they had no clue what basketball was. I'm so glad he's gone, I just hope they don't have him in a montage accidentally, I might still freak out.
