Wednesday, March 25, 2009

No Cinderellas but perhaps a crocodile in Detroit

The NCAA basketball tournament has been a drag so far. Twelve seed Arizona is the only Cinderella team and there is nothing Cinderella about Arizona. The Wildcats are a Pacific-10 Conference team with NCAA championship history and a well known university.
Come to think of it, Cinderella's story isn't so Cinderella. She was attractive and lived in a palace. Her only flaws were hanging out with mice and that she was mistreated by rich, ugly people. It would have made more sense if Cinderella was ugly and poor. Speaking of ugly and poor, those are the best adjectives to describe my bracket, which I set on fire in the middle of the first game last Thursday.
Even with my disappointments, I know there were some quality games in the first two rounds and some top seeds saw some scares. And there was Dayton, Western Kentucky, Wisconsin and Cleveland State, which was the only real upset winner (over Wake Forest) in my opinion, but Cleveland State lost in the second round to Arizona, leaving the bracket without a compelling underdog story.
However, all the 1-3 seeds have advanced for the first time in the history of the tournament and in the South and East portions of the bracket 1-4 have all advanced. Meanwhile, the West Region features 1,2,3 and 5 seeds and the Midwest Region has 1,2,3 and 12 seeds shooting for the Elite Eight.
The Sweet 16 tips off Thursday night on CBS, which means there will be no Survivor, which is great because I hate that show. I actually gave it a try last fall because Thursday nights are one of the only nights I watch television and Survivor just happened to be on. I got sucked in a few times before I determined that I really hated it because it really doesn't seem like surviving to me. I mean, they were in Africa and not one person was eaten by a crocodile, which got me thinking about the show and why Survivor has never been in the United States.
I told a friend it would be interesting if they put Survivor in Detroit. Contestants would be homeless and forced to live in areas with the highest crime rate. And to spice things up, CBS could throw in some crocodiles to make up for the ones that were not in Africa.
This is all relative because Detroit is hosting the Final Four this year and if my Final Four can "survive" this weekend, I am still very much alive to win at least one or two of the five pools I am participating in.
I have Gonzaga, PITT, Louisville and Memphis with PITT to win it all, but for several reasons, I'm worried all four of my teams are going down this weekend.

Michigan State and Kansas are two reasons I am worried about Louisville. Villanova is the reason I am concerned about PITT. North Carolina and Oklahoma are way better than Gonzaga. That leaves Memphis, which is the only team in my Final Four that I still have hope for.
And the fact that I have hope for the Tigers is the very reason I am worried about them. I am the worst prognosticator ever. I'm not sure I have ever won a bet, even simple ones like last fall when I bet a friend that one of the Survivor contestants would be eaten by a crocodile.
Honestly, they were playing in a lake in the middle of Africa and not one croc surfaced?
What are the odds?

No comments:

Post a Comment