Four Regions: A Look Back (or; "A Retarded Monkey and a Dart Board Could've Picked This Sumbitch Better)

So it's been two weeks since I last posted here.  In those two weeks, lots of shit has gone down.

-The first four rounds of the NCAA Tournament which, if you've been paying attention, are kind of a big deal to me.  If you haven't been paying attention, feel free to look back at the last five or six posts on here to gain some understanding of the context.  It's not like I'm going anywhere.

-My spring break.  In an ideal world, this would've included me going to , drinking more than any reasonable human being should, admiring the stuffed bikinis on the beach as my girlfriend either looked at me disapprovingly or outright punched me in the balls (depending on where I was on the "Still Able to Check Girls Out Subtly----------Completely Fucking Hammered And 'Subtle' Might As Well Be A Chinese Word" spectrum), yelling at random objects, dancing with random objects, and probably leaving the week with a warrant out for my arrest and at least three types of VD.  Since the end of my tenure at my last regular job predates Alciedes Escobar's major-league debut, however, this was not the case.  A more realistic summary includes masturbation, watching DVDs of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" in my underwear, sneaking from my parents' liquor cabinet like it's junior year again, masturbation, furious attempts to find weed in a town that  I have zero connections in, masturbation, watching the second weekend of the tournament, going to the Bucks game Wednesday night (since my buddy Pat had an extra ticket), masturbation, sleeping past noon, being reminded by my mom how bad she wants me to move back home after I graduate, and masturbation.

I wish I had a better story for my readers about why I've been neglecting them, but I don't.  If it makes you feel any better, tell yourself that I was mauled by a bear and had to go to the emergency room.  In fact, I'm going to keep telling myself this, as it is much less depressing than my actual break.

-Yes, the Milwaukee Bucks are still players in the postseason hunt.  Yes, the Milwaukee Brewers start their season in less than a week.  Yes, these are my two main reasons for living at this point in time.  And yes, I should be ashamed of that.

-The second weekend of break, I did manage to make some money doing an actual job, albeit a temporary one.  By contrast, I've been writing content for this blog since August--counting research, deleted posts that didn't make the cut of publication, and social marketing, we're talking at least 75 hours of work.  And in this one weekend, I made 30 times as much as I have writing.  I'm not saying that you HAVE to click on the ads in the right column of this page, but anything that keeps me from having to give blowjobs for beer money is a plus at this point in my life.

(There's a lesson to be made here: if you want to start up a blog, do it--but do it for the right reasons.  If you do it because you enjoy writing, because it makes you happy, and because you feel like you can make people laugh/think/pay attention, you are good.  If you want to do it to make money, prepare to be disappointed.  Realistically, I would probably be financially better off working in a sweatshop in the armpit of the world than doing this for a living.  And I am not kidding about that at all.)

If you are hoping for things to get less depressing now that I'm done updating you and moving on to the meat of this post, you might want to click away.  There are lots of blogs about unicorns, kittens, and Nazis that will be far more pleasant.  Okay, maybe the last one won't.  But there has been nothing pleasant about trying to forecast this year's tournament.  Since bullet points seem to be in style today,

-I lost three of my Final Four teams in the second fucking round, yet my bracket is still better than 29% of Yahoo entries and 19% of ESPN entries.  It goes without saying that I hardly turned in a championship showing this year--but averaging those two out, one-fourth of people did fucking worse!
-My girlfriend had Gonzaga and Marquette--yes, you read that right, Gonzaga and Marquette--in the Final Four, and is still in 5th place in her entire dorm's Bracket Challenge (for context: we're talking about a 10-story dorm, free entry, and cheesy prizes for the winners).
-In short, as the alternate title of this thing says: a retarded monkey and a dart board could've done a better than average job of picking this year's bracket.  Several billion dollars of wasted productivity, and lots of failure to show for it.  Bravo, America.

That being said, I'm not doing separate posts for each region this time around.  Everything is in one place.  But we're going to look back at what went right (not a lot), what went wrong (a metric fuckton of stuff), and what we can learn from it (if my bookie comes up to you and asks if you've seen me, the correct answer is "I think he moved to Brazil, dude").

Midwest Region

I overrated: The easy answer here is obviously Kansas.  Has a majority-vote champion ever fallen so flat?  We all thought that their depth would be their strength--instead, the converse turned out to be true.  Their lack of an Alpha Dog, someone who could step up and say "Okay, there is no fucking way we are losing this game," was what killed them.  Ali Farokhmanesh had that mentality for Northern Iowa: "Okay, this is my senior year and if we lose, my career is over.  We're not going to lose.  Period.  If it kills me, we will win this game."  Again, this is why I love senior-heavy mid-majors to overachieve in the tournament--the experience is nice, but a majority of these guys have no future playing the game or, if they have a future, it's in a place like Turkmenistan.  Desperation brings out the best in the human spirit.  With one title under their belts already and a fat NBA paycheck in each of their futures, do you think Sherron Collins or Cole Aldrich really cared about that game to the point that Farokhmanesh or Jordan Eglseder did?  For the first two, in the grand scheme of things, it's a blip in the radar.  For the last two, that game was literally the defining 40 minutes of their lives, win or lose.

I underrated: Michigan State.  From a gambling perspective, I am terrified of the Michigan State-Butler game.  It's like a collision course of "Nobody believed in us!"  Everyone wrote MSU off after the Kalin Lucas injury--yet they overcame Northern Iowa's Cinderella power and survived a brawl with Tennessee.  These guys are gelling at exactly the right time.

I properly rated: San Diego State.  What does that say about this year's tournament that one of my four regional "most properly rated" titles goes to a team that I correctly said was a stupid upset pick even as they were being heralded as a sexy upset pick?  I quit.

Interesting Fact: Ohio State was the only team to make it to the second weekend who was supposed to.

Another Interesting Fact: Georgetown sucks.  They really, really, suck.  Hard.  If I was Austin Freeman, I would think long and hard before declaring for the NBA Draft.  And if I was a sports agent Freeman wanted to hire in the event that he does declare, I would think long and hard about whether I wanted to spend this summer negotiating with Turkish League or Italian League teams.

Now Class, What Did We Learn?  We learned that talented seniors with nothing to lose are to be feared, heavily.  We learned that Bruce Pearl and Tom Izzo know how to get the most from their teams in March.  We learned that teams without a clearly defined go-to guy crumble in close games.  In other words, we learned absolutely no new information.  I will no proceed to bang my head on the wall repeatedly.  To the girls in the apartment next door, I'm sorry for the noise.


West Region

I overrated: BYU.  I thought their three-point shooting would be enough to carry them to an upset over K-State.  However, when you only attempt 16 threes over the course of the game, that's just not gonna happen.  How do you not come out gunning from long range when you're the top three-point percentage team in the nation, and a hot hand from three blew away Florida in the second overtime of Round One?

I underrated: Xavier.  Jordan Crawford is the real deal.  Like "if I was an NBA scout for a lottery team, I would be watching every existing piece of footage on this kid" real.  His and Jacob Pullen's double-overtime duel Thursday night is an early contender for Sports Moment of 2010.

I properly rated: Murray State.  Very few opportunities for bragging rights with my bracket this year, but here's one of them: I nailed this one, bitches!  Suck it, world!

Okay, now that we're done with that, enjoy this clip of the first (and most awesome) buzzer-beater of the tournament.  The best part comes at the 23 second mark: three benchwarming ginger kids who all look like they just watched their parents get murdered.


That was fun.

Theory of the Day, Supported By Incontrovertible Evidence: The fact that Jacob Pullen's first name isn't "Richard" is proof that his parents have no sense of humor.  I'm sorry, the "Pullen It Off" puns just don't cut it for me.

Most Gawd-Awful Coach of the Touranment: Dave Rose, BYU.  How the FUCK do you only shoot 16 threes against a 2-seed when that's your team's strength?  Doesn't airing it out give you the best chance to win?  Didn't Jimmer Fredette have actual NBA Jam-style flames shooting out of his head during the second overtime of the Florida game?  Rose seemed more concerned with holding down the margin of defeat than making any kind of effort to pursue victory.  You owe your team better, Dave.

Now Class, What Did We Learn?  Alpha Dog vs. Alpha Dog battles during prime-time television make for March memories.  If you were in a pool with a Butler alum, you probably lost.  Vermont would've been at least 10 points closer if TJ Sorrentine was sitting courtside for the game.  Never, ever, back a 'fraidy-cat coach in an upset bid.  The Big East sucked a fat one this year.

East Region

I overrated: Wisconsin.  In order for them to exploit a perfect matchup against Kentucky, they would've actually had to... get to Kentucky.  Instead?  Wofford almost pulled the upset, before handing away the game in the final minutes.  Then Cornell blew them off the court.  I didn't know it was possible to have a "trap game" when you're not even playing--but Cornell-Wisconsin definitely qualified as a trap game in my bracket.

I underrated: Washington.  The best-kept secret of the tournament is that the most superbly-played game so far happened in the first round: Marquette-Washington.  Both teams shot over 50%, both teams shot over 60% from three, both teams had four players in double digits, came down to a buzzer-beater from Calvin Pondexter... if you love watching basketball, you loved that game.  Both of those teams deserved to be in the Sweet Sixteen.

I properly rated: Kentucky.  Sure, they are four talented freshmen.  But at the end of the day, four freshmen playing for their draft prospects is not a good game plan to get to the Final Four.  I told you all that their inexperience in close games would haunt them.  I knew that they would run away to a few huge wins early (29 points over ETSU, 30 points over Wake Forest, 15 points over Cornell), but that when they faced a team that could stay in the game, they would melt down.  I just missed the boat on which team would force said meltdown.

Most Gawd-Awful Coach of the Tournament Award, Honorable Mention: A well-trained monkey could've taken Rick Barnes' collection of All-Americans to the Sweet Sixteen.  He's either the college version of Chris Wallace (taking all the best high school players who will never be good college players) or Mike Dunleavy (taking gifted teams and careening them into a lightpole).  The fact that all three of the above are still employed is a crying shame.

Reason (Rick Barnes Won't Give The Media) For Texas' Epic Late-Season Collapse: It's a recession, guys.  We had to cut payroll this year.

Best Example of Life Imitating Art in Sports History: Kentucky Basketball vs. Ricky Bobby.  Either they win, or they crash the car.  If they're not first, they're last.  Also, most of them will not obtain a college degree, like Ricky.

Now Class, What Did We Learn?  Don't overlook a bad second-round matchup because you love a team's thrid-round matchup.  A great team will always outperform a collection of great players.  Darington Hobson should start looking for affordable apartments in the Czech Republic.  Just because a team steamrolled their last opponent doesn't make them a guarantee to beat the next one.  Just because it didn't count on the scoreboard doesn't make it awesome:


South Region

I overrated: The Big East.  At this point, I wouldn't pick Villanova to make the final of the NIT, much less the real tournament.  And I'm seriously considering deleting the entire Luke Harangody section out of the Tournament Manifesto 2.0.  It never happened, okay?  What's amazing is that Notre Dame still almost held off Old Dominion, despite four points from their best player.

I underrated: St. Mary's.  I wish I had seen them before the tournament--I've never seen a team that makes the extra pass so well.  My favorite team to watch all month.

I properly rated: Nobody.  I missed five of the eight second-round teams, three of four Sweet Sixteen teams, half of the regional final, and the Final Four rep.  The worst region of my  bracket-picking life, by a wide margin.

Mind-Blowing Stat of the Touranment: Not only did Notre Dame only get four points from Harangody, but they attempted three free throws as a team all game.  That's got to be a record for basketball games not refereed by Dick Bavetta.

Mind-Blowing Transaction of the Tournament: Siena flopped as the most-picked upset of the tournament (34.7% of Yahoo users took them as a 13-over-4), yet Fran McCaffery turned that turd into a power-conference deal at Iowa.  Not saying that McCaffery doesn't deserve to coach at that level, just that the timing of it--especially after he won in the first round the previous two years, and got no big-time offers--is uncanny, to say the least.

Now Class, What Did We Learn?  Coach K can indeed coach a team of All-Americans on a roped-off red carpet path to the Final Four.  When you load a bracket with the worst possible 2, 3, 4, and 5-seeds of the tournament, picking the winners is about as reliable as picking the weather.  Between Duke's Final Four trip and the Yankees' World Series win, God truly hates sports fans.