Viewpoint: March Madness was Maddening This Year

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?? I’ve probably shared with you ten or twelve times that my favorite sporting event is March Madness. I never fill out a bracket and plan on winning fame and fortune. But I do watch as much of it as I can. I do have to say, this has been a tough year. I don’t want any of the final four teams to win.

?? It started out really rough in the second round when the team I always want to win the tournament, Kansas, got blasted by Gonzaga. KU’s leading scorer has been injured a good part of the year and the NCAA tournament was no exception. But when KU led 44-43 at halftime, I was feeling pretty good.

?? ?You know the rest of the story. Gonzaga outscored KU 37-6 in the first 14 minutes of the second half and I was sad. Very sad.

?If you can’t beat them, join them. Gonzaga beat my Jayhawks, so Kansas would look really good if Gonzaga won it all, right?

?? That lasted a game, then Purdue knocked Gonzaga off 80-68. Zach Edey, who has to duck when he walks under the basketball rim, is awkward and 7’4” tall. He doesn’t even have to jump when he makes a basket. He just stands there and puts it in. So, I won’t be rooting for them.

?? ?So, Lori and I started looking around at the Elite Eight and decided we liked Clemson and Duke. I was never a real big Duke fan when Coach K was the coach because he beat K.U. way more than I liked, but compared to the rest of the field we were the most comfortable with those two teams.

?? ?Well, you saw how that turned out. Duke got beat by North Carolina State 76-64. And Clemson lost to Alabama 89-82. I never have liked Alabama. I’m not sure it has anything to do with basketball. I got pretty tired over the years of them winning the NCAA in football, year after year, after year.

?? ?Alabama is going to the Final Four for the first time ever. Kansas has gone 16 times. Take that Crimson Tide football team. And as far as NC State? I have to be honest with you, I’m not a big fan of the big guy, D.J. Burns. To begin with I’ve never seen him run, nope not even a step or two. It just diminishes the other 99.9% of basketball players who run all the time! And if I were a referee, every time he shoots, he’d get a foul for whacking people with his forearm to get them out of his way. No go, NC State.

?? And while I’m whining about officiating it seems like anytime a player takes a shot somebody gets a foul called on them. In the KU game against Gonzaga, at one point a Gonzaga player shot the ball and an eyebrow hair fell off of a Kansas player’s eyelash and he was called for a foul. Serious.

?? So, who does that leave? UConn. What do I have against them? I don’t want to see them repeat as National Champions. Of course, I did a lot of rooting against UCLA for the same reason. They won seven in a row and 10 out of 12.

?? ?Lori and I discussed it and I think we have sorted through and found the best of four bad choices to root for. Yep, UConn is it by default. Kind of like a lot of political races. It isn’t that you like any of them, you just don’t like the others more.

?? Any of you who love UConn have to be worried right now. Since we are throwing our support to them, things just got a whole lot tougher for them considering our track record this year.

?? Bottom line, though, there isn’t anything that beats March Madness. Kansas is looking good for their fifth title next year. We’ll be watching.

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