Crumpled Notebook

One week til the SF Giants’ Home Opener game. This may have happened last year too, but their home opener is the same day as the NCAA Basketball Championship. That officially makes it the best day of the year.

I love baseball. I read a great post today by Walt Mueller about baseball and grace. It actually reminded me of something I was talking about the other day with someone. Maybe I’ll blog about that later. Anyway, here is his post that I liked. For anyone who doesn’t know, Walt Mueller is like the man on Youth Culture and how that fits in with our Christian lives. I heard him speak at Boot Camp in January and he was really good. He is a Phillies baseball fan so, but I won’t hold that against him. What about those Phillies? (Sorry Crystal, I couldn’t resist).

You like how I did that? I did a post that wasn’t about basketball, but still had to mention it, huh? Of course, now you get a post or two about baseball, then I’ll be silent on it probably until my trip, and then again until my next trip, and then again until, just before the playoffs.

One day I promise I will stop blogging about basketball. Probably not until April 7th or there abouts, but I will stop someday soon.  Anyway…

Every year I join up with some people I know to make an ESPN Tournament Challenge group. We fill out our brackets and do all that stuff. We’ve been doing this for like, what 8 years now? Something like that. I’ve actually only met one of the folks in this group (Josh in Connecticut), but we all were friends from the FRIENDS Message Boards back in the day. That’s another story though.

So, Lisa, one of our group members, created a “control group” for this year. Basically what she did was selected all the top seeds to win in each game. 1 over 16, 8 over 9, 2 over 3. You get the idea. She did that for every single game. So far, she’s beating everyone in our group. In fact, she’s in the 81 percentile of all the ESPN brackets, which isn’t too bad. Of course, her Final Four are all one seeds. I assume from there she maybe picked the higher one seed for each match-up. North Carolina, being the overall one seed, she picked as the Champion.

What I find even more interesting though is that in the South Region (Memphis, Texas, Pitt, Stanford, Kentucky, etc…) the ONLY game that hasn’t been won by the higher seed was the Michigan St/ Pittsburgh game! It will be interesting to see if Memphis beats Texas tonight and keeps that pattern going.

If you saw my brackets you’d know I had Pitt in the Final Four, and everywhere but ESPN, in the Championship Game. So, of course, the only higher seed to lose in that region is going to be Pitt.

Okay, so here’s the deal. I don’t like the idea of all the top seeds (except Pitt) winning. So today, when Texas and Memphis play, we need to cheer hard against Memphis. It doesn’t matter for my bracket, it’s all about the underdog, right? And Memphis is NOT the underdog, despite what Calapari wants you to believe. They still got that 1 by their name. Unless they are overrated (ahem), then they are not the underdog.

I promise, me wanting Memphis to lose has nothing to do with the fact that I can’t stand them or their coach…heh.

I am loving the East region this year. I think this is going to be a great match-up. Two great coaches. Two great centers. David Padgett who originally was recruited and signed to play for Roy Williams at Kansas (Williams left for UNC before Padgett’s first season). Padgett played there one season before transferring to Louisville.

Apparently Williams and Pitino have some not so good history from Pitino’s first season at Kentucky. Looks like they made up though. Read about it here.

As far as coaches go, Roy Williams is a good coach, but I don’t care much for him. I like UNC well enough, but not crazy about him. It’s the opposite with Duke. I like Coach K, but not their team.

So, apart from the WKU vs UCLA matchup if you’re a Toppers fan, which Sweet 16 game are you most looking forward to? I know for me, I am looking forward to the Louisville vs Tennessee game. Not sure why other than it’s two teams I follow and am somewhat vested in. I’ll cheer for Tenn since they are an SEC team, however, since I let go of my bitterness of Rick Pitino coaching at L-ville, I find myself cheering for the Cards on occasion. Gotta rep the state, right? At the very least though, that game should be a good coaching match up. I picked Louisville to win and based on how I’ve seen Tenn. play in the tourney so far, I feel pretty confident about that pick, but hey, it’s March, you never know!

Otherwise, I think WKU is going to give UCLA a run for their money. They were looking really good against San Diego.

A strange thing just happened. I was sitting here watching the Duke game and talking to my mom on the phone. She says, “Who are you for?” Naturally I say, “Not Duke,” and then proceed to tell her how I’m never for Duke and how much I hate Duke.

Then, here’s where the strange part happened. I realized I actually wanted Duke to win! I’ve never, ever wanted Duke to win. At least not post 1992, and I don’t remember much about them before then. Incidentally, the first time I ever felt such disdain for Duke was the infamous Kentucky vs. Duke game on March 28, 1992 in the finals of the East Region for a trip to the Final Four. Oh yes, I remembered all of that except the exact date. I have hated Christian Laettner since and if I ever saw him, I’d probably throw something at him (Okay, maybe I shouldn’t “hate” him, but I wish I never knew his name). It’s noteworthy to point out that just a week later is when I became an Indiana and Bobby Knight fan. April 4th I think. That was the date of the Duke/Indiana Final Four game for a trip to the Championship game. Duke won of course. But my dislike for them grew and was solidified and I fell in love with Indiana and Bobby Knight. That date, I actually remembered because I was at some relatives’ house the night before my great grandfather’s funeral and we were all watching the game.

Anyway, so writing this helped me remember exactly why I hate Duke. However, I’ve gained more respect for them. I’ve always liked Coach K, just not the team. I guess why I’ve had to lighten up on them (other than working for a Duke fanatic) is that I recognize that they are a powerhouse team. They are always a contender. As is Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, etc….What I don’t like is when random teams just pop up and think they are all that. When the media starts loving them when they haven’t really earned their keep. It takes more than just a few years to become a legendary basketball team or coach. That’s probably my folly when filling out NCAA brackets. I don’t pick the teams like Gonzaga (of recent). I don’t pick Xavier. I won’t pick Wisconsin. Not to undermine their talent this year. But that’s just it. It’s this year, or maybe this year and last year. I guess that kind of makes me a basketball snob, huh? What would you expect being from Kentucky though?

However, I will point out that I love Cinderella teams. The teams you don’t expect to win. The teams that aren’t ranked. The WKU, San Diego, Sienna teams. The Gonzaga the year they became the Cinderella.

I like teams with history. And I like Cinderellas. I don’t like teams like Xavier and Marquette and Wisconsin.  The teams that could very well become a Duke or UNC or UK or even UCLA, but they just aren’t quiet there yet, and they need to remember that. Yep, I’m a snob. And if that makes me actually want Duke to win a game or two, especially to W. Virginia, then I guess I’ll take it.

I still hate Christian Laettner though. If you don’t know who that is, look on YouTube. I refuse to put that rubish video here. Having to highlights of it during March Madness is enough.