Tag: NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship

I find myself otherwise engaged tonight as does TheMomCat.  I’ve asked BobbyK to check in from time to time, please be nice to him and make your own fun.

My predictions so you can point and hoot are Louisville over Kentucky and Ohio State over Kansas.  I like Louisville because of their Big East connections, Ohio State I don’t like at all but I like Kansas less.

Joe Nocera wrote a piece that everyone is talking about-

Orwell and March Madness

By JOE NOCERA, The New York Times

Published: March 30, 2012

Athletes are “student-athletes,” a phrase coined by Walter Byers, the man who turned the N.C.A.A. into a modern powerhouse, because he feared that some states might try to classify football and basketball players as employees. College sports follows “the collegiate model,” a term coined in 2006 by one of Byers’ successors, Myles Brand. Realizing that amateurism was becoming outmoded, he needed a new concept that would allow athletic departments to continue exploiting athletes while denying that is what they were doing.

The essence of “the collegiate model” is that college athletes are students first, and that college athletics is secondary to academics. One can then ignore the fact that during this three-week tournament, the N.C.A.A. will reap around $800 million, while the players who make that possible will get nothing. They’re students, after all.

…

Calipari, complained Emmert, was “throwing away the collegiate model.” But, he’s not, because in the big-money sports of football and men’s basketball, the collegiate model is a fiction. Rather, Calipari is dispensing with the hypocrisy that everyone else goes along with, including our basketball-mad president, who allows himself to be interviewed while filling out his March Madness brackets, but can’t bring himself to utter a word on behalf of the athletes that college sports so ruthlessly exploits.

Regional Final Results-

Tonight’s Action-

Well, that kind of sucked the fun right out of it.  At least I got to sing Bill Orange.

Last Night’s Results-

Tonight’s Action-

It’s hard to get enthused about tonight’s games.  Richard has no interest in the tournament now that MSU is out and made a point of telling me it was the worst game they played all season (I wouldn’t know).

This is the Cinderella side of the bracket and any real upsets will come tonight, but I don’t expect any.

Oh, and Sepang Qualifying at 4 am on Speed.

Last Night’s Results-

Tonight’s Action-

If you’ve never been to Syracuse you may not know it’s built over a great salt dome.  This song from 1912-13 is kind of midway between Bill Orange from 1899 and Down the Field from 1914 and was originally part of a musical, not a fight song.  Oddly enough there are no YouTubes I could find.

It’s distinctly possible that the Orange could go down tonight because they’re not that good a team and their 7 foot center, Fab Melo, is still under suspension.  Plus they’ve never, ever been able to shoot fouls in the Boeheim era.

Altogether it’s been a tough year, they’ve had a Paterno-esque molestation scandal with the assistant head coach, Boeheim has always hated his job, and they’re pulling out of the Big East because the Administration would rather have a Throwball program that sucks than a Basketball team.

They are my sentimental favorites, but you don’t bet money on sentiment.  Armando, who has been consistently wrong this season, gets to see his beloved ‘Gators go down in flames tonight so don’t expect any charity from him tomorrow.  His predictions are here.

Michigan State should advance with ease (No Troll Izzo), I’m rooting for Cincinnati over the evil Ohio State (I’m only half troll and no part Buckeye).

Seeders did a good job.  Only 2 upsets at all in the first day of play.  UConn out and sanctioned.  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted; hope you like that Throwball.

Yesterday Evening’s Results

Tom Izzo is not a troll.  I studied at MSU under Falcone who thought I was hopeless and was right about that.  They held the service for my Uncle who got decapitated in a plane crash at the chapel.  Funny story that, they mis-identified the body and sent it off with another family.  When they got down to the bits and pieces they had a rib and a scrap of lung.  “Did your husband smoke?”, they asked my Aunt.  “No.”  “Then this is not him.”  When they finally got it sorted out they didn’t want her to view the body which was kind of funny because she was a biochemist working in oncology and had seen any number of cadavers.

Tonight’s Action–

ps. Melbourne Qualifying @ 2 am.

Tear up those Cinderella brackets, yesterday afternoon was a good day for the seeds- no upsets at all.

Yesterday Afternoon’s Results

Today’s Afternoon Action

• Armando’s Overall Predictions
• Armando’s ‘Go ‘Gators’ Cheerleading

Hoyas–

The team name is derived from the mixed Greek and Latin chant, “Hoya Saxa,” (meaning “What Rocks”) which gained popularity at the school in the late nineteenth century.

I used to sing it a capella.

So the Huskies are a 9 seed and it’s better than they deserve.  Calhoun is very ill and they’re facing 2 years of sanctions.  And they’re leaving the Big East because a mediocre Throwball team is considered more important than an Arena filling Hoopies program.

Thanks for nothing UConn.

Did I mention defending National Champions?

This schedule looks impossible to me but I have 2 sources.