The "Coronation" of Ohio State and Other March Musings

It's March and, for me, that means two things: my birthday, on the 18th, and the NCAA tournament. Call me crazy, but the latter is so much more meaningful for me than the anniversary of my birth. This is because it's probably the greatest sporting contest there is. Yes, you have to be somewhat good in your corner of the world to qualify, but in no other collegiate tournament structure do you have teams from schools you've never heard of going toe-to-toe with giants like Duke, UNC, and Kansas...and many times beating them. It's agonizing and wonderful.

So, some musings thus far. Since the conference championships, I haven't understood the media's infatuation with Ohio State. It's as like they have won the tournament already. Everything they do is celebrated to the Nth degree, yet besides a complete dismantling of my George Mason Patriots yesterday - a team that isn't really that good, in all honesty - they haven't done all that much. Yes, they only lost 2 regular season games, but they play in the Big Ten, a conference whose prowess is mightily inflated by the sports analysts who call its schools their alma maters. I just don't get it. They beat Penn State - a team which fell in the second round to Temple - by 11 points to win the Big Ten championship. I really don't get it. They might beat Kentucky, but I wouldn't be surprised if they fell to them, either.

UNC. Not so good. Yes, they had a good regular season, but barely made it out against Clemson in the ACC tournament and got crushed by Duke the next game. They had a lackluster performance against lil' old Long Island University and barely scraped by Washington. I think they need to make a statement against Marquette, who beat yet another uninspired Syracuse club yesterday.

I love the Richmond schools this tournament, UR and VCU. In one of my brackets - full disclosure, I filled out six this year - I had both teams in the Sweet 16, so I'm pumped to see what happens. I have Kansas winning it all in all of them, but I would flush it all down the toilet to get to see Richmond play VCU to get to the Final Four, which is more of a possibility for VCU, who next plays Florida State. By the way, can someone tell me what the hell the commotion was about against VCU earlier on in the tourney? Apparently, a lot of people didn't think they deserved an at-large bid. To them, I say it wasn't handed to them: they kneecapped USC to get it.

Finally, like so many of you, I hate Butler. Nothing more to say there.

Like I said, this contest is so awesome because it's so equal. No one is guaranteed success. Unless you're Ohio State.