Crafting a Miracle

Fresh off the first atrocious ref job of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, PYB chimes in with some thoughts on the first weekend of March Madness:

--We hate the generic, homogenized, boring floors that are used in every arena. We liked when the court designs were left as is. It gave the games character when you had the bucking bronco in Laramie and the cactus sprouting from the sideline in Tucson. Now, a horrendous mixture of black and blue with the plainest font known to man, makes it impossible to tell Dayton from Salt Lake City.

--The best way there is to tell where games are now is to listen to the crowd. Apparently, the tournament became a series of home games for top seeds and 12 seeds. Michigan and Michigan State in Detroit, Ohio State in Dayton, Kansas in Kansas City, Cal in San Jose, and Louisville in Lexington. David Stern would be proud.

--We had our first exciting finish Sunday, which was unfortunately ruined by the referees. It was just a matter of time, as the zebras have been missing every close call for four days. Ohio State benefitted from at least seven bad calls prior to the charge called on Iowa State, which was immediately followed by awarding the ball to the Buckeyes after it went off the fingers of Deshaun Thomas. Aaron Craft subsequently hit a last-second winning shot on a possession that should have never been. Once again, officials inserted themselves as the story and ruined a great game, and only Charles Barkley had the balls to say anything about it. Greg Anthony and Kenny Smith toed the company line...

--Gonzaga, after taking the honor of becoming the worst regular-season number one team in college basketball history, took the honor as worst number one tournament seed of all time. After nearly losing to Southern in the first round, they got pounded by Wichita State. The Zags are taking a page from the Kansas Book of Basketball, by perennially underachieving in March.

--If you needed further proof that college basketball is watered down, Georgetown got dominated by Florida Gulf Coast from opening tip to final buzzer.

--Another nitpick: what the fuck is up with all the late tips in the second round games on Saturday & Sunday? (BTW, we refuse to call it the third round just because eight shitty teams play mid-week in the "First Four." We can accept the games being pushed toward prime time on Saturday, when the public can enjoy them late into the night over a few beers. But Duke and Creighton starting at 9:40 EDT is ridiculous. Don't they know that most of us are so fucking hungover from Saturday and/or depressed about going to our shitty jobs on Monday that we can't stay up that late? This sucks, just like Super Bowl Sunday sucks.

--What do we like about the tournament? Well, gambling on it. Somehow, despite the subpar basketball, we've been solid with our prognostications, racking up a 27-11-3 record against the spread through Sunday's first game.

All we got. Checking in later --- PYB.