Bracketology

  No matter what I do, this is another year where my wife soundly thrashed me in our NCAA bracket challenge. We have done this four times, and we have each won twice. She does it with an educated mind, courtesy of the articles she reads and watching Pardon The Interruption. 

I do the same, but she shamelessly beat me with some astute picks in the early rounds. She has Houston winning it all and I have UConn, yet by time the Sweet Sixteen morphed into the Elite 8, I was toast. Don’t feel sad for me (which I sincerely doubt you would)—she gets to pick the place we go for dinner to celebrate her win. 

There was some heavy carnage in the Sweet Sixteen. #1 seeds North Carolina and Houston fell to Alabama and Duke. #2 seeds Arizona, Iowa State and Marquette went down at the hands of Clemson, Illinois and North Carolina State. Only top seeds UConn, the defending champ, and Purdue survived—and they looked good. 

illinois gamely tried to play against UConn. With a 30-0 run, one of the most dominating stretches ever in a NCAA Tournament game, the Huskies put the Fightin’ Illini to the sidelines. Next up is Alabama, which has battled its way to the Final Four, outgunning Clemson to get there.

Purdue found the right antidote for Tennessee: 7’4” Zach Edey. The Boilermakers’ center killed the Vols inside and from the free throw line, scoring a career-high 40 points while playing almost the entire game. This was the best I have ever seen Purdue and Edey play. 

NC State continued its improbable run in the tournament with a strong performance against ACC rival Duke. Big man DJ Burns will give Edey a difficult time. Don’t underestimate the Wolfpack. Even if they come to the Final Four with the most losses for by a team that has gone that far, the team has jelled since the start of the ACC Tournament  where they won five games in five days, including victories over five ranked teams in their current nine game winning streak. 

UConn seeks to be the first repeat champion since 2007-08. Alabama has never been to a Final Four. NC State wants to recapture the magic of 1983’s incredible championship. Purdue is in the last four for the first time since 1980. These games are going to be tough. Should UConn continue to play at the level it has for the last few weeks, it is their time to win.  

On the women’s side, defending champion LSU showed swagger and tight defense in a 18-9 run in the fourth quarter against UCLA. Angel Reese taunted UCLA coach Cori Close after the All-American picked up her fifth foul. The officials acted like they didn’t see anything. So wrong. It got worse when Close re-tweeted a Los Angeles Times article maliciously maligning LSU. The Tigers have a big chip on their shoulders.

On Monday night, we get the game fans have been hankering for. Iowa plays LSU in a rematch of last year’s final. Caitlin Clark,  notwithstanding her magnificent career, has been carrying a chip on her shoulder—needing to go through LSU en route to a national championship. Too bad this isn’t the Final Four; nonetheless the hype building up to this game will be great. Expect a huge audience Monday night. ESPN will be very happy. 

The UConn women continue to try to match their male counterparts in wins. This UConn version is a far cry from the foreboding teams which won 11 titles. The depleted roster went out on Duke pretty handily and had to withstand a near fatal rally to hold on for the win. Next up for the women is top seed USC with its sensational freshman, JuJu Watkins. 

As expected, unbeaten South Carolina added Oregon State to its list of 2023-24 victims. It should be a big surprise not to see the Gamecocks in the Final Four or even the title game. North Carolina State took it to Texas. Big time. 

So NC State has two teams in the Final Four, making Raleigh the center of the college basketball universe at this moment. Should UConn and Paige Bueckers, who Huskies’ Hall of Fame Head Coach Geno Auriemma says is the collegiate best woman’s player, defeat the Trojans and Watkins, then we could have two programs with Final Four participants. The only way there two schools could meet in the men’s bracket is if they both win on Saturday; the women would face each other in the semi-finals. 

Right now, this is South Carolina’s tournament. Could they be knocked off by any of the surviving teams? Yes. Is that likely—we’ll see.

Continuing with basketball, as Golden State tries hard to maintain its foothold for the final spot in the play-in group for the Western Conference with the Houston Rockets hot on its trail, Draymond Green did it again. With the Warriors on the second game of a back-to-back contests in Florida, Green managed to pick up two technical fouls early in the first quarter versus Orlando for bumping a referee and then abusively running his mouth. 

Despite his histrionics, the ‘Dubs won behind Steph Curry’s brilliance. It was clear that Curry had had enough of this garbage from Green. He covered his eyes with his jersey after shaking his head when Green got tossed. And after winning the game with a punctuating three point basket, Curry kicked three court side chairs in obvious frustration/anger. 

In his post-game press conference, Head Coach Steve Kerr admitted that Green deserved to be sent to the showers. Still, he and Curry reiterated how important Green is to the team’s success, and Curry felt he could have done more to prevent his teammate and friend from being ejected.  

I read a piece on line written by Jay Mariotti, the brilliant former Chicago Sun-Times columnist and Around The Horn participant. He called for the NBA to ban Green permanently. Others have ridiculously blamed Curry for not being a leader and preventing Green from acting like he has. 

Yes, Green is seemingly invaluable to the Warriors winning. And his track record of ugly selfishness which has repeatedly hurt the teams is too long for me to elaborate. Something has to happen if there is another incident like this in Orlando or when he grabbed a Miami Heat player around the neck the night before. Commissioner Adam Silver needs to step in to protect the integrity of the league—even if it dooms the Warriors for the playoffs. 

This could really be the last round up for the trio of Curry, Green and Klay Thompson. While Curry continues to shine, the wear and tear of this season is evident, especially with Thompson’s diminished productivity and Green’s behavior on a team which simply does not have the talent to match teams like Denver, Minnesota or Oklahoma City. 

Should GSW not make it to the play-in, or lose during the mini-tournament, it may well be time for management to start to look to the future. A future which envisions Curry not playing too much longer and a team without Green and Thompson. 

It will be sad to see, but great teams suddenly unfold in strange ways. Except that the Green scenario has been happening before our eyes for far too long with minimal repercussions. His anger on the court, which motivates him, has already cost the team another championship and may have largely contributed to Kevin Durant not returning. His dreadful act has run its course. 

Baseball season in the States is upon us. Yankees fans were delighted with the first series of the season—four wins at nemesis Houston. Mega star Juan Soto has been everything that was expected with his bat; he saved the Opening Day win with a laser throw to the plate to nail the Astros runner and he singled in the winning run on Sunday. Aaron Judge has started slowly. I wonder if his injury this Spring is still haunting him? And how about youngsters Oswaldo Cabrera and Anthony Volpe having nice starts to the season? The first ten games are a barometer of very little, as injuries and flawed mechanics can dictate how a team will actually do. 

Baltimore punished the Angels in the first two games until LAA won the finale. Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota and defending champion Texas started out fast. Atlanta beat up on the Phillies; the Phils won the final game on Sunday. Surprising Pittsburgh has taken it to the Marlins while the Brewers and Mets seems to have bad blood between the teams as Milwaukee won all three games. 

In the highly competitive NL West, all the teams have won a game. Expect the Dodgers to emerge from the pack, but not necessarily with the dominance experts have predicted. Wild Card teams are certainly a possibility with the Giants, D-backs and Padres all strong. 

Speaking about the Dodgers, superstar Shohei Ohtani is in the news—for all the wrong reasons. His long-time interpreter is accused of taking millions from the slugger to pay off gambling debts. While Ohtani has maintained his lack of knowledge that this was going on, the air seems to be rather murky as to what really happened. 

This is the kind of cloud over a player and a ball club which can fester deep into the season and affect all concerned. I want to hope that Ohtani is clean. It would be a major stain on baseball and demonstrates why the pervasive emphasis on sports betting—legal or otherwise—is a giant problem for all leagues to oversee. 

April is upon us. The excitement of college basketball along with the NBA, NHL and baseball have been conjoined at the hip. 

Add in college hockey and gymnastics. I haven’t learned from my basketball bracket failure. My wife and I are picking the winners of the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Tournament, going head-to-head with our daughter, who participated at the collegiate club level and remains knowledgeable in the nuances of the sport. 

At least I have somewhat learned my lesson. I am letting my wife pick the winning teams. She obviously is more astute at this than me. For this year. 

Bracketology. The science of male stupidity. That you can bet on.