6-11 Is the New 5-12!

First off, yesterday was the most glorious day in a long time.  No, I don't care about the condition of my bracket, nor should you yours.  Brackets don't mean shit, especially when you picked Vandy to do anything ever (ps. what's wrong with you?).  At this point in time, what's done is done and so there's nothing else to do but put your bracket in your sock draw and leave it there until the first weekend in April, because if you're too busy sobbing over Notre Dame, then amidst the tears, you're going to be missing some really fantastic basketball.

I mean, how many upsets did we see yesterday? 5?  Out of a possible 14 games?  For the record, a 9 beating an 8 is not an upset.  Texas sucks, you should have known that, and so should have the committee, but more on that later.  And we almost had at least two other upsets, when Florida stormed back against the Cougars, Nova getting bailed out by the suddenly present referees, and Tennessee scraping one out, which I didn't even know was possible until last night.  And I'm actually hesitant to call Washington over Marquette an upset.  Sure, the Pac-10 sucked this year, but Washington was easily the best team in that conference, had several returning started from last year's tournament appearance, and got to play on the West Coast against a team with a worse record in what was basically a home game for them.  But Old Dominion over Notre Dame?  An absolute upset, even if the quality of play made me want to gauge my eyes out.

But take a moment to examine the matchup: sure, both Big East teams lost (and they weren't the only ones since even Nova was a loser yesterday regardless of what the box score says), but one lost to an actually good team and the other lost to a team that just happened to make one more shot than the other.  If Old Dominion played Washington in a play-in game, what would the spread be?  10?  Then why are these two teams given the same seeding?  Notre Dame did win the lottery by performing so well down the stretch and even beating Marquette in the process.  But what's the point of giving Washington an 11, if they're just going to give them such a solid matchup?  Is that the reward for winning the Pac-10?  It just seems odd considering that Marquette would have run ODU yet had concerns even before the game against the Huskies began.

Anyway, these are the things that we should be pondering before, during, and after games, when we're not being too excited about wall-to-wall basketball for the next 72 hours.  I mean, if you weren't thrilled by Murray States last second victory yesterday, then you're in this for the wrong reasons, but then again, isn't that what March Madness is to the average fan?  The construction of a close-your-eyes-and-guess bracket that might make sense at the time, that is until it's creation gets in the way of the utter pleasure that is March Sillybilly.

Matter of fact, burn your bracket, it's the only hope some of you have as sports fans, especially since you have Nova in the Finals... Yikes.