We have earned the right, period.
Bracketology
It pains me to admit that I might be getting old, that diversions that I once found as necessary as breathing now seem...like diversions. This makes me feel like the aging punker who, missing three entire octaves from his hearing, inadvertantly does a duet with the chick from the B-52's. And as my friends scream at me about being a sell-out, rather than looking for my little lost passion, I squint at them, wishing I could read their lips.
So rather than accepting responsibility for any possible arc in my life, I am going to blame Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps.
My boy Airborne, with whom I once sat at a bar and ate two meals and drank (insert some number more than 5 and less than 20) beers without ever using the bathroom during the Final Four, complained to me about the bubble and about the "experts" and about the endless discussions of who is going to the tournament. He talked about how he does not care and about how it angers him.
I remained quiet, because of course I love these things more than I love my wife. Shhh. She's asleep in the next room.
I also love the discussion afterward of what might happen, the potential upsets and interesting match-ups, and above all, which of the last three teams in should not be in in favor of which of the last three teams out.
Well, I loved that.
I am not making any judgment about the selection committee, who appear to put way more effort into the selection of 34 at-large bids than the current administration has into our flailing economy. I am indicting the general quality of teams available to them.
Before I go any further, let us get one thing straight. There is not a single team that deserves to go to the tournament that is not going. Not one. There are several who do not deserve to go who are going. I think they should have invited some of the teams that did not make it in 2004 rather than some of the bottom-feeders who made it.
Then I had to listen to Digger Phelps, Dick Vitale and god help us all, Billy $%*&ing Packer commit wholly to their annual whine festival. Digger wants Arizona State and their 88 RPI in the tourney, Dickie V wants 19-12 Virginia Tech, and Billy $%&*ing Packer wants to know why the ACC, the number one RPI conference (by the way overtaken by the Big 12), got only four teams in, and the head of the selection committee could not just sack up and say "because the rest of them sucked."
And most of the insightful commentary afterward followed in the "Georgia is a great story"..."Drake can shoot"..."Pitt won the Big East tournament" kind of vein. It's like Fisher-Price's My First Bracket. For people who live in Asian countries without the benefit of any modern technology until the antenna yak moved a little to the East and kaboom, they suddenly got CBS for an hour, it was probably really helpful.
So, you see, it's not that I am old or jaded or that I have misplaced my youthful enthusiasm. It's that Billy $%&*ing Packer is attempting through abject idiocy to rob joy from my life.
Now get off my lawn.
So rather than accepting responsibility for any possible arc in my life, I am going to blame Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps.
My boy Airborne, with whom I once sat at a bar and ate two meals and drank (insert some number more than 5 and less than 20) beers without ever using the bathroom during the Final Four, complained to me about the bubble and about the "experts" and about the endless discussions of who is going to the tournament. He talked about how he does not care and about how it angers him.
I remained quiet, because of course I love these things more than I love my wife. Shhh. She's asleep in the next room.
I also love the discussion afterward of what might happen, the potential upsets and interesting match-ups, and above all, which of the last three teams in should not be in in favor of which of the last three teams out.
Well, I loved that.
I am not making any judgment about the selection committee, who appear to put way more effort into the selection of 34 at-large bids than the current administration has into our flailing economy. I am indicting the general quality of teams available to them.
Before I go any further, let us get one thing straight. There is not a single team that deserves to go to the tournament that is not going. Not one. There are several who do not deserve to go who are going. I think they should have invited some of the teams that did not make it in 2004 rather than some of the bottom-feeders who made it.
Then I had to listen to Digger Phelps, Dick Vitale and god help us all, Billy $%*&ing Packer commit wholly to their annual whine festival. Digger wants Arizona State and their 88 RPI in the tourney, Dickie V wants 19-12 Virginia Tech, and Billy $%&*ing Packer wants to know why the ACC, the number one RPI conference (by the way overtaken by the Big 12), got only four teams in, and the head of the selection committee could not just sack up and say "because the rest of them sucked."
And most of the insightful commentary afterward followed in the "Georgia is a great story"..."Drake can shoot"..."Pitt won the Big East tournament" kind of vein. It's like Fisher-Price's My First Bracket. For people who live in Asian countries without the benefit of any modern technology until the antenna yak moved a little to the East and kaboom, they suddenly got CBS for an hour, it was probably really helpful.
So, you see, it's not that I am old or jaded or that I have misplaced my youthful enthusiasm. It's that Billy $%&*ing Packer is attempting through abject idiocy to rob joy from my life.
Now get off my lawn.
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Comment by Marin on April 9, 2008 at 6:15am - You little ingrate. Oh, not about the brackets, but you couldn't even shout out to your one and only sister? And the only chick here in VanFanLand? *pbthththththththth*
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