March 30, 2014

  • Obama's bracket pick fail

     
    What were they smoking?  Spartans, I mean.  In the second half of the game, starting with a nine point lead against UConn, the Michigan State Spartans proceeded to commit fouls, miss easy shots, and stumble into each other like junkies.  I was cheering for the Spartans even though I grew up in Ann Arbor.  We used to call MSU "Moo U," because it was once an agricultural college.
    msu
    Moo U lost by six points.  In past years, after MSU lost, there were riots in East Lansing where cars were overturned and windows shattered.  Watch for the news.

    And the Wolverines?  Maybe my friends were right about the Moo U Spartans, but I knew we could count on the University of Michigan Wolverines to keep things sorted.  They played their bracket game against Kentucky that same Sunday.

    We saw both games live and streamed in a site named http://www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live.  Thrilling.  As expected, the Wolverines were well trained scholar-athletes, clever ball handlers, and not necessarily champing at the possibility of joining the NBA.  The Kentucky Wildcats, in contrast, were all, or mostly, freshmen of unnatural height.  I assume the giant sophomore players had already advanced to millionaire status.  Who could blame them?

    But the gigantic Kentucky freshmen managed quite well without sophomores, thank you.  They got most of the rebounds and prevented the Michigan players who got inside from going in the direction up.  And yet the Wolverines matched their efforts very well.  Stauskas, the Michigan guard, dazzled Kentucky with a series of bullet-like one-handed passes.  With one minute to go (did I say thrilling?), he had brought the score to a 72-72 tie.

    In the last seconds, Harrison, one of those enormous Kentucky guys, took three steps backwards from ouside the key and sank a swisher.  It looked so implausible.  He must have been sixty feet away.  And that's how it ended.

    Sigh.