March
Motherfuckin’ Madness
After
the end of the Super Bowl, a typical non-biased sports fan goes through the
same cycle of indigestion, drunkenness, and sadness. The indigestion and
drunkenness are a result in overindulgence of bar foods and alcohol. The
sadness comes from the lull in the upcoming sports viewing cycle. Sure, there
are NBA games, but no one gives a shit about basketball until the playoffs or
random Asians dominating from nowhere. Only six people care about the NHL,
which is double the viewers of NASCAR. Golf has been boring since Tiger Woods
stopped putting his dick into anything with a heartbeat. That’s why we should
be glad that March Madness comes around and saves the day.
Most
people associate March Madness with the NCAA tournament. It actually starts
with the end of the regular season and conference tournaments, which determines
top seeds and entry into the tournament. Sure, no one got excited when
Louisville and Cincinnati set back offense several decades in their Big East
final matchup on Saturday, but when St. Bonaventure won their conference on
Sunday and stole an at-large bid away from a bubble team, that affected so many
fan bases. Completing the pre-game of the tourney was the Sunday selection
show, where the committee picks the 68 teams that are going dancing. All 31
conference champions make it, while the rest of the field is made up of
at-large teams. Some teams were locks for the tourney (Kansas, for example)
while some teams squeaked in (Iona). The bubble burst for several schools, who
watched with the show with the rest of America (Drexel, Seton Hall).
The
field use to be 64 teams, but in 2001, the NCAA made it 65. The worst two
conference winners played on Tuesday for the right to get dumped on by the top
seed in the country. No one liked this concept. The NCAA corrected this
abortion in 2011 by adding three more teams, and having the four worst
conference champs and the four worst at-large teams play to get the field to 64
by Thursday. This can be important as VCU; a team many didn’t feel deserved to
be in the tournament in the first place, won their 2011 play-in game and
advanced all the way to the Final Four.
Once
the field is set, that’s when all of America gets the fever. Whether it’s
sports-obsessed fan or the person who hates sports, March Madness takes over
everyone. People mysteriously are too sick to work on Thursday and Friday, yet
recover in time to head to the bar and watch the tourney for ten hours.
Production for the people who actually go to work goes down as people try to
stream games online or refresh ESPN constantly. People claim to be experts in
college basketball, yet rip up their brackets after they lose a Final Four team
before the weekend is out. People who have no idea about sports do surprisingly
well in their pools. In college, my tournament pool was once won by a girl who
picked teams because their names sounded funny or knew people who attended that
school.
What
people love about the tournaments are the upsets. We live in a society where we
cheer for the underdog. We loved it when Roy Hobbs smashed a home run into the
lights. We loved it when Rudy made it onto the field and sacked the
quarterback. You don’t see upsets too much in real sports, except for the tournament.
Anything can happen when it comes down to one game. The top teams should
prevail, but every year in the opening weekend, we see a double digit seed
advance to the Sweet 16 every year. Who can forget such Cinderella teams like
George Mason or Butler advance all the way to the Final Four? We loved seeing a
Northern Iowa take out the tourney favorite Kansas in the 2010 2nd round,
unless you picked Kansas in your bracket.
Can
this be the year of the upset? There have been three instances in the last 25
years where no #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four, including last year. Or
perhaps this is the year of the chalk (where the favorites prevail). In 2008,
the Final Four was all #1 seeds. Who knows what 2012 will bring. We do know a
few things though. We know that people everywhere will be watching, ready to
cheer on their favorite teams and/or their brackets picks. We know the streets
will be filled with ripped brackets. We know bar owners and bookies will be
loving life and their increased business. We know managers and teachers will be
dealing with a group of less-interested people. We know people will complain
that Gus Johnson isn’t calling games. We know people will wonder where the hell
the TruTV channel is on their cable box. And we know everyone will be a sports
fan for just a brief time. Thank you, March Motherfuckin’ Madness.
-Written by Marcus Boyd
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