Tag Archives: Basketball

March Madness (NCAA and NBA style)

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So, as promised, I would talk about the beloved NCAA Tournament some more this week. The first thing to be said here is that I am running a bracket pool, so I am incredibly connected to all of the games. Not only do I watch because I love basketball, and because I made a bracket, but because I am watching 55 other brackets, to see which of my friends will take home some cake.

I want to talk about two things, one is the incredible story that cannot be ignored of the tournament thus far, and the quality of the basketball overall.

First, who could possibly root against Florida Gulf Coast University? FGCU is on a tear, knocking off two teams they had no business beating, and doing it in style. They aren’t afraid to go after anyone, attacking Georgetown on offense and on the glass, skying for alley-oop dunks and pushing the tempo against a high powered team from the mighty big east. These Eagles fear none, and it has translated into great basketball, and an even greater story.

The rise to power of this program may be even more impressive. Every single player on the Gulf Coast roster was born before the university was founded, and were well into school before the young college established athletic programs. They haven’t even celebrated their tenth anniversary of having an NCAA basketball team, and they are now one of the final 16 teams in the Division I tournament? It’s an outstanding and unheard of ascension.

The second thing to mention is the quality of the basketball in this year’s tournament. There has been so much parody in the league all season long, it comes as no surprise that all of the games thus far have been very competitive. However, there have been some edge-of-your-seat competitions. Indiana-Temple, Ohio State-Iowa State, Marquette-Butler, and Harvard-New Mexico to name a few. Games that never had a lead of more than ten points either direction, and maintained a high level of excitement and play throughout. It makes for an tournament matched by no other.

And while we are on the topic of basketball, I’d like to mention that the Heat lost tonight, ending their second-best-of-all-time win streak at 27 games. They lost at the hands of the Bulls 101-97. It was an incredibly physical game. At one point LeBron James was literally tackled. Wrapped up and taken down. Later on, he got a technical foul for trying to atom bomb his way through a Carlos Boozer screen (read brick wall).

It’s a good time of the year to enjoy basketball.

GO ORANGE!

MARCH MADNESS

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This is the first of (perhaps) multiple posts on the tournament of all tournaments. The grandaddy of them all. (Even if that is supposed to refer to the Rose Bowl).

This week, I am writing about something that everyone in this nation can relate to, can understand, can have some sort of knowledge of, even if they have no idea how many points a three-pointer is worth: The NCAA Basketball Tournament.

As I write this post, I am interrupted by meetings with multiple people rushing brackets to me to enter my March Madness pool. (Want in? You have until noon!) Sports fanatics, casual fans, guys just trying to reassure their man-cards, girls looking for shopping sprees, and girls implored by their boyfriends to join the madness are all brought together by the event that makes everyone into a psychic. And, by the way, the girlfriends beat the boyfriends just as often as it goes the other way, this isn’t my first pool.

Aside from the largest ignorant breaking of gambling law this nation has ever seen, the NCAA tournament is a beautiful collection of many elements that takes something as simple as a basketball game and transcends it into something more; it is storied, it is poetic, it is comedic, and it is tragic; it gives us heroes, and burns names of enemies into our hearts; it breaks the hearts of 67 teams, and lifts one into eternal glory.

Perhaps the most beautiful part of the tournament is the cinderella story. The tiny school from the Missouri Valley conference knocks of the Goliath of the Big Brawny Big East. A school by the name of Lehigh knocks of college basketball’s elite in Duke. The #8 seed Butler Bulldogs come within a bounce off the rim from going all the way to cut down the nets, and Shaka Smart and his VCU Rams are forced to play their way into the tournament in the first four then find themselves on the biggest stage in the final four.

Perhaps the greatest story of tournament history was commemorated by the most recent ESPN 30 for 30 film “Survive and Advance.” It told the story of the NC State Wolfpack, and their miracle run in 1983, led by the icon Jim Valvano, recently learning of the cancer that grew inside his body. If you have not seen the film, I highly recommend it, I cried.

And if you haven’t seen his speech in 1993 at the ESPYs please watch. It is about cancer and can teach us all how to live our lives.

And if you want to see a quick cinderella story watch this. It’s how a name like Ali Faroukmanesh becomes a household name.