Here on the southern plains the sun is bright and the breeze out of the north has a sharp edge to it. It is the moment of reckoning for those with a taste for a wager or two. The NCAA Men's basketball tournament begins in earnest Thursday. What will follow over the next three weeks will lead a select few to strut, while many others will gnash their teeth and heave heavy objects through the screens of televisions.
It isn't a complicated process once things begin. Sixty-eight teams will tip off and all but one of them will end the season with a loss. It only gets weird when you try to figure out who that final winning team will be.
Yes, all manner of theorists, odds makers, experts, analysts, and seers will try to predict the outcomes of contests to a public who for the most part hasn't watched a single college basketball game all year. Algorithms will be cited, tea leaves will be consulted, logic will be applied and bones will be read by millions of Americans right up to and including the President of the United States. Everyone one will have a favorite and everyone will pick at least one team that shouldn't even be in the tournament to begin with to reach breathtaking heights.
Cinderellas are everywhere in this field, but there is a distinct shortage of glass slippers. Even after one earth shaking upset the tournament will grind on and the pressure will mount. It is almost a certainty that the little school that whacked an overwhelming favorite on Thursday will find itself being called a loser by the end of the weekend. Sometimes you are fortunate enough to run into a couple of the big boys having bad nights, but you can't count on it happening six times in a row.
Then of course there are the high end chokers. They are those supposed super basketball programs that bathe in tradition and glory and inevitably fuck your brackets up so completely you are out of the competition by the end of the first weekend. You know who they are, Duke and Kansas are among their number. In fact Duke is such a wild card, such an intolerable pain in the ass I cringe every time I look at their tournament schedule. Pick them and they tank to some God forsaken outfit. Last year it was Lehigh. Ignore them and they are liable to be sitting in the final four acting as if they get there every year.This year I have the bastards losing to Creighton in the second round. Same thing with those rubes from Lawrence. I have them running into Villanova in the second round and 'Nova is always a dangerous tournament team.
The fact is the game has become utterly unpredictable thanks to a rule that allows the great players to opt for the NBA after only one season. You are basically laying your money on a bunch of 18 year old kids and players who will either be studying dentistry, or cranking out burgers sometime in the near future. The truth is all of the prognostication has been reduced to dumb luck and the experts rendered useless.
So who will it be? Well as they say in Spokane, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.
Yes, I have Gonzaga winning it all. They've been to 15 tournaments in a row and they have an effective big man. Besides, the Jesuits are on a roll. When your guy is elected Pope you know you're having a good year and it isn't a good idea to try to derail a train like that.
Hey, it isn't much of a system, but right now it is all I have.
See you in Atlanta.
3-18-13
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