Thanks to Kentucky’s follies, we have to open this up by paying a bit of attention to the NIT.
OK we good? Got that out of your system? We can’t let them completely hijack this post. Moving on.
Georgetown is a Joke
In a year where we were all afraid that there would be absolutely insanity, where the unpredictable would reign supreme, and your bracket would be in the toilet by Friday afternoon, we actually got something we can rely on: John Thompson III laying an egg in the NCAA Tournament.
Seriously. Vitale may be the master of the obvious, but it there are not enough ALL CAPS on your keyboard to use when talking about how bad Georgetown has been in recent NCAA Tournaments.
Following the loss, many Syracuse fans shared a beer, and then a huge, breathless belly laugh.
But on the other side of the upset, Florida Gulf Coast University, which has only been eligible for the NCAA Tournament for four years, and was founded in 1991 (think about that, very bizarre) celebrated while Twitter played jokes on their “famous alum” and a made up mission statement.
The Eagles received a lot of low blows last night. We won’t share those here. They won; the Hoyas lost, thus the joke is on the underachieving, established basketball program.
Marshall Henderson Wins a Tournament Game
There was no way Ole Miss could knock off Wisconsin. Not when you give Bo Ryan five nights to prepare for a team that was up and down all season and heavily reliant on an incredibly fiery and enigmatic sharp-shooter. The odds were stacked against the Rebels, or so we thought. Somehow, Andy Kennedy ousted Ryan from the tournament, and the Marshall Henderson Reality Show continued, for better or worse.
But a lot of people are pretty ticked about all this.
Following the game, and a trip to a Kansas City watering hole, Henderson took a fake Ryan Harrow Twitter handle to task, looking quite silly in the process.
I guess, in a way, this is like beating your pretend in basketball when you were five and then spitting game at him, or it. Or something.
A Pac – 12 (10) Renaissance
Is the Pac-12 back? Well, UCLA didn’t quite get the memo, but on Thursday night Oregon and Cal showed they were far better than #12 seeds, dismantling Oklahoma State and UNLV, respectively, while Arizona quelled any upset chatter from Belmont. Everyone out west is happy!
A Mountain West Meltdown
Conversely, this was supposed to be the Mountain West Conference’s breakout year on the hardwood. But the Tournament has a way of eviscerating regular season success from our memories, and now the MW can be found in the doghouse for the foreseeable future, as the league saw three of its five NCAA teams fall in the first weekend, including Final Four threat New Mexico which lost to Hahvurd.
Ugh. How embarrassing. Hope you’re commiserating with the Big East.
A Sportswriter, A Nosy Mascot, A Civil Rights Activist
That is all.
Oh, and this too. Yummy.