Okay, here is my NCAA tournament blog. I decided to skip posting picks or doing a pre-tournament rundown frankly because that's what every other schmo with a blog has done. Instead, I figured I'd just touch on it between weekend rounds. This is not a sports blog, but there is no way on the planet that you can be a sports fan but somehow not be a fan of the NCAA tournament. The upsets, the neutral sites, the "One Shining Moment" song, the idiotic forking over of innumerable sums to enter pools you have no shot of winning, and of course, failing to do anything significant for two sets of Thursdays and Fridays in March.
So here we are after the first weekend of action and already we have been sliced from 65 to 16. I've paid less attention to college basketball than I ever have in my entire life this year but I'm pretty sure I'm part of the majority that would have chosen a different 13 than Bradley and a different 11 than George Mason to wind up in the Sour Sixteen. At the other end of the spectrum, I'm surprised that all four #1's are still around. Usually at least one gets sent packing in the second round, but Villanova held off a late charge by Arizona and Memphis actually looks like the second best #1 right now.
Honestly, I came into this tournament kind of miffed at the TV guys who you would think get paid more to do power conference games than mid-conference games based on their reaction to teams that go in. Hey Billy Packer, despite your whining about it, did you realize that only 8 of the 34 at-large bids actually went to mid-con teams? Now look at your sweet 16. Memphis, Gonzaga, Bradley, and George Mason are all mid-conners. So 1/4 of the at-large teams were from the mid-con schools and 1/4 of the Sweet 16 are from mid-cons. Hmm, go figure ... Makes you wonder what would have happened if Missouri St. would have made it in over a Seton Hall.
Moment of the tourney so far for me? It actually happened the day before the tourney started. I was on a conference call at the j.o.b. with 2 other guys in my office, 4 in Vancouver and 1 or 2 marketing guys elsewhere, one of which was trying to train us on a product with a power point I was supposed to be paying attention to (and I was - intermittently.) You know how these things go, occassionally the guy talking asks if everybody understands and you take your phone off of mute long enough to mutter a grunt and go back to what you were doing. Well, your genious writer forgets to put his phone back on mute and moments later utters to his equally bored colleague, "I wonder if I can fill out my tourney brackets while I listen to this guy?" There are not many feelings akin to your co-worker leaning back in his chair and saying "You're not on mute ..." From what I was told, the whole call went silent for a moment before returning to plan. Fortunately there were enough people on the call that no one could really finger where it came from, but we all had a pretty good laugh (at my expense) later. March. It is truly a month of madness.
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