Monday, March 15, 2010

Locura de Marzo--The Jorge Gutierrez Bracket Remix

Despite a white-hot love affair with Olympic hockey and a lifelong soft-spot for curling jokes, Bochy's Oversized Pillow is incredibly relieved that a real sport with a real postseason looms only two days away. But before I move on to justifying a UCSB-Wofford championship game, I feel strangely compelled to confess the following about the Winter Games:
  • The Olympics are a great reminder that hockey goalie helmets are by far the coolest functional athletic equipment in all of professional sports. I would buy this in a heartbeat if it was under $50 and wear it to every sporting event, grad school reception and professional development conference I attend for the rest of the year, and to every wedding I attend for the rest of my life (including my own). With all respect to Goldberg and my beloved Kelly Hrudy, Ryan Miller is now officially the only goalie I would sleep with. Obviously, he has to wear the helmet the entire time.
  • I miss Michele Kwan: I'm a sucker for moley Koreans on ice. Yes, there's a porn subgenre.
  • Pistons-Heat games are more compelling than short-track speed skating: Apollo just doesn't do it for me. Halfway through the race where he set the all-time American winter medal count, I flipped over to TNT to see if Charlie Villanueva looked any less terrifying on our new television. He does, but that's only because our new TV is framed with cardboard cutouts of Popeye Jones' head.

There's already enough ink spilled over how terrible February and the first few weeks of March are for sports fans, so I'll move straight to the much-anticipated bracket picks. First though, the requisite Nate Silver methodology disclosure:

1) As a formerly middle-class, mildly athletic white male, I naturally gravitate towards the following types of teams: underdogs, teams who are undersized, teams with "true" point guards who look pretty passing the ball, teams who do nothing but shoot threes, and teams who would look good in the One Shining Moment montage.

2) Any team with a truly unique mascot will warrant significant attention. For UC's, this includes teams with walk-on Asian-Americans.

3) For all toss-ups, I go with Jay Bilas--college basketball's taller, blacker version of Peter Gammons.

4) I always make perfectly rational decisions.

The Dirty Dirty (South):

(1)Duke vs. (16)Arkansas Pine Bluff/Winthrop: Whenever I see the 1 seed lined up against the play-in winner, I always think it would make more sense if they just let both play-in teams combine forces against the one-seed, 10 on 5. Wouldn't that be more entertaining than the non-event drubbing these games almost always turn out to be?
Winner: Duke

(8)Cal vs. (9)Louisville: Fuuuuck...Cal gets in the tournament again and pulls a Big East team with an athletic interior scorer and a point guard capable of exploiting undersized defenders. Could have been worse--we do have the weakest 1 seed in Duke--but could have been better also. Am I the only one who rather have UW's draw from the 12 seed? A tough call.
Winner: Cal by 300. Gutti goes for 30, Theo for 75, Chris Kaman grabs 420 boards...deliberately.

(5)Texas A&M vs. (12)Utah State
: Ahhh, the much ballyhood 5-12. On the one hand, I empathize with any mascot with shoulder hair; on the other hand, the infallible Bilas has Texas A&M winning. Tiebreaker--Deandre Jordan, the Wilt of backup Clipper centers (sorry Cherokee Parks), has eligibility left.
Winner: Texas A&M

(4)Purdue vs. (13)Siena: The non-upset upset.
Winner: Siena

(6)Notre Dame vs. (11)Old Dominion: I hate the fighting Irish, and Luke Harangody is a lock to play Lenny in any off-Broadway production of Of Mice and Men, but I don't see ODU beating them.
Winner: Notre Dame

(7)Richmond vs. (10)St. Mary's: Holy shit Richmond's mascot!!!Winner: Richmond. And my mom for sewing that mascot costume for my 2nd grade play.


I just realized there's no prayer of me completing this for every region before the tourney starts, so here are the highlights.

Although I Still Prefer Jasmin to Cinderella in Terms of Raw Sexuality:

(13)Wofford over (4)Wisconsin--You have to feel sorry for the Big-10. I read somewhere that now over 70% of Big-10 undergraduates are laid-off GM employees who couldn't get into nursing school. But Wisconsin plays the ugliest brand of basketball in the history of recorded sport, and should be punished for it.

(14)Sam Houston State over (3)Baylor: There's only room for one sleeper Bear in the South, and he's old and arthritic.

(13)Murray State over (4)Vanderbilt.


My Elite 8 Sleepers:

(7)BYU: Storming Mormons will play in Salt Lake City if they make it this far. That's like if Columbia made the tournament and played their opening round matchup inside Katz's Deli.

(12)Cornell: I'm buying the Big Red. Plus, it's my favorite gum. Although if they played Orange Tic Tac State, I'd have a true dilemma on my hands.

(8)Cal: Yes, I just Plaxico'd my bracket.


My Final Four:

Kansas, BYU, West Virginia, Nova

Championship: Kansas, Nova,

Winner: Nova---I love teams consisting entirely of brutally physical tweeners between 6'4 and 6'8 who can jump out of the gym and play no defined position other than "the guy that scares the shit out of the opposition". And they can all shoot. And Scottie Reynolds is a homie.