FreddyBrown
Moderator
I'm an admitted college basketball junkie. For many years I have done my best to be able to take the first two days of the tournament off. I have DirecTV and the March Madness package and I watch as much of as many games as I can. I love it even in an average year.
This year, for me, was probably the most enjoyable NCAA tournament in memory that did not involve Iowa. It had:
--A reasonable number of early-round upsets
--Two great wins by UNI, for whom I was rooting
--Early round losses by Kansas and Syracuse, both of whom I was rooting against (as I would in most years)
--An Elite Eight loss by Kentucky, which completed the trifecta of highly-seeded teams I wanted to see go down
--Lots of good games, such as the double-OT Xavier-K State game called so memorably by Gus Johnson (I wanted for K State to lose, but Butler took care of them the next round anyway)
--An extended "Cinderella story" in Butler (although I've now had enough of them in the so-called Cinderella role; they have two or three potential NBA players on their roster and one who could be an NBA All-Star someday)
--A great run to the championship by Duke, from which I hold a degree and for whom I always root unless they're playing Iowa (which, unfortunately, has been the case in a couple of past NCAA tournaments)
--A nice run by Tennessee, which was one of my three "root-for" teams along with Duke and UNI. Tennessee's loss to MSU was one of the few disappointing outcomes of the whole tournament for me.
All in all, the tournament was just one long, great event, and it would still have been a great event for me if Hayward's shot had gone in.
Two things on the slightly negative side for future reference: One is that as noted above I've had enough of the Butler underdog/Cinderella story line for a good long while. They may even end up on my root-against list next season just to avoid having to hear it all over again.
The other is that between his public criticism of Iowa for firing a failed head coach and the fact that I'm bored with Michigan State in the Final Four now, I've also had enough of Izzo and hope that we can turn the tables on Sparty sometime in the not too distant future. I generally root for all the Big Ten teams in an NCAA tournament with the exception of Illannoy, and I think MSU may be joining Illannoy on the "not so much" list in the future.
After a great tournament like that, I can't wait for the next one--and more importantly for the next "official" one that includes Iowa. I hate that they're probably going to mess with perfection by expanding to 96 teams--not only because of the dilution, but because I don't think I can regularly swing more than two days off in that week of March!
This year, for me, was probably the most enjoyable NCAA tournament in memory that did not involve Iowa. It had:
--A reasonable number of early-round upsets
--Two great wins by UNI, for whom I was rooting
--Early round losses by Kansas and Syracuse, both of whom I was rooting against (as I would in most years)
--An Elite Eight loss by Kentucky, which completed the trifecta of highly-seeded teams I wanted to see go down
--Lots of good games, such as the double-OT Xavier-K State game called so memorably by Gus Johnson (I wanted for K State to lose, but Butler took care of them the next round anyway)
--An extended "Cinderella story" in Butler (although I've now had enough of them in the so-called Cinderella role; they have two or three potential NBA players on their roster and one who could be an NBA All-Star someday)
--A great run to the championship by Duke, from which I hold a degree and for whom I always root unless they're playing Iowa (which, unfortunately, has been the case in a couple of past NCAA tournaments)
--A nice run by Tennessee, which was one of my three "root-for" teams along with Duke and UNI. Tennessee's loss to MSU was one of the few disappointing outcomes of the whole tournament for me.
All in all, the tournament was just one long, great event, and it would still have been a great event for me if Hayward's shot had gone in.
Two things on the slightly negative side for future reference: One is that as noted above I've had enough of the Butler underdog/Cinderella story line for a good long while. They may even end up on my root-against list next season just to avoid having to hear it all over again.
The other is that between his public criticism of Iowa for firing a failed head coach and the fact that I'm bored with Michigan State in the Final Four now, I've also had enough of Izzo and hope that we can turn the tables on Sparty sometime in the not too distant future. I generally root for all the Big Ten teams in an NCAA tournament with the exception of Illannoy, and I think MSU may be joining Illannoy on the "not so much" list in the future.
After a great tournament like that, I can't wait for the next one--and more importantly for the next "official" one that includes Iowa. I hate that they're probably going to mess with perfection by expanding to 96 teams--not only because of the dilution, but because I don't think I can regularly swing more than two days off in that week of March!
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