The Ides of March Madness

If Julius Caesar were alive today, he'd be over 2000 years old, crinkly as a Ruffles potato chip, and really, really cranky. After turning on today's sports coverage, he also might say something along the lines of "Et tu Kellogg?" after watching the Harvard Crimson flail around in the first round like Brutus's conscience in Shakespeare's highly un-athletic play.*

It's all because March brings madness in the form of basketball and especially the NCAA Tournament brackets. As I write this, millions of people across the USA are fitfully weighing the shooting averages, points per game, and cheer-leading outfits of teams they've not watched all season. Most of their conclusions will be wrong, because, who picks a perfect bracket? It's harder than sitting through an entire episode of Joan Rivers' Fashion Police without making a inconsiderate plastic surgery joke ...or for that matter, just getting to a commercial break.

However, there are some effective strategies for picking a decent bracket. What they are, I cannot tell you, as my brackets usually explode like a hot water balloon about 15 seconds into the opening game. However, I do have some helpful suggestions:

• Pick the team that will win. Oh, sure, you say that's obvious but let's see you do it.
• Don't pick Slippery Rock University. Seriously. They're not in Division I. Trust me; I make this mistake every year.
• Don't go by the team nicknames. You'd think a bunch of Bulls from South Florida would trample Owls from Temple, but apparently owls got game. 
• The previous rule does not apply to teams named the Aardvarks. You can safely pick anyone playing against the Aardvarks, including grade school teams.
• Don't pick 16 seeds to win a game. They never have. (So, of course one will today, just because I'm writing this. Jerks.)
• Assume that at least one number 1 seed will reach the Final Four. Basketball experts may seem like overconfident, opinionated blowhards sometimes, but they watch a lot of basketball. More to the point, they don't actually pick the seeds. Usually 1-2 number 1 seeds get to the Final Four, just because they can.
• Don't get Cinderella crazy. Sure, the real Cinderella's a cute blonde with a thing for see-through shoes and dramatic exits, but Cinderella stories in the NCAA tourney are upset wins. While it's great fun to see overconfident, over-funded college athletic programs get beat by smaller teams, it won't happen in every game. So, try not to pick more than 15 to 20 of these per round.
• You know the saying, "good guards make good teams?" Check and see which teams have the best security. ("Brinks, for the trey!")
• Experienced coaches can get teams farther in the tourney. Nah, I'm just kidding. It's a crap shoot and they know it. Good coaches go out early all the time. It's great fun watching them kick chairs on the way to give their winning counterpart a death-grip congratulatory handshake. It's like watching all the nominees who didn't win Oscars rolled up into one angry former athlete.
• Don't just go by how a team looks. I have found that closing my eyes when I pick helps. Except when I miss the bracket and accidentally click on links to Cialis ads. They're all over sports sites for some reason.
• Tall guys are good at basketball. Just saying.

Good luck, and Happy Madness!

* Seriously, there's not a single crossover dribble until Act V.

Bringing Meaning to March Madness

Well, the annual roundball festival commonly known as March Madness is underway.  In our house though, I like to think of it as "basketball heaven." The idea of 12 hours of solid college ball, for two days straight, followed by another two days of 8 hours straight of ball (interrupted only by the Arsenal vs. West Ham match I watched earlier) is enough to overdose any basketball junkie into an early, ecstatic, hardwood-covered grave. Add to that the fact that this year has seen more than it's fair share of buzzer beaters, upsets, and long heaves that go in, and it's amazing the old ticker's still buzzing along.*

Nonetheless, I know that not everyone loves this time of year, and a fair few of you are confused** by all the crazy basketball terminology. So, as a public service (and in the spirit of collegiate education), I've provided a quiz testing your knowledge of the many terms and concepts you'll encounter during this wacky sporting spectacularama. Just choose the definition you think fits each term. The answers are at the bottom of the post. Good luck, and happy madness!

1. The arc

a. The 3-point line
b. The arena, given the wet weather in the mid-west U.S
c. The static electric shock you get when you touch the rim on a dunk
d. Lady Gaga's latest costume

2. The iron unkind

a. A player's shot bounced off the rim and didn't go in
b. Some coach decked a ref with a chair
c. The plumbing in the locker room is on the fritz again
d. The headlines when Tiger's wife tried to clock him with a 9-iron

3. Send it in big fella!

a. CBS color commentator Bill Raftery's signature call on a dunk
b. A player's admonition to his buddy before a date
c. The United States Postal Service's new marketing slogan
d. A crowd chant often heard on an episode of Man vs. Food

4. Dribble

a. Bouncing the ball in order to legally move it on the court
b. What happens when you drink water too fast on the bench
c. The nickname of the sloppiest guy on the team
d. One of the crises in next week's episode of The Marriage Ref

5. Tomahawk slam

a. A vicious one-handed dunk
b. Drinking game played by Florida State University fans
c. Denny's latest cultural misstep
d. Retired coach Bobby Knight's favorite way to discipline a player or reporter

6. Trifecta

a. A 3-point shot
b. A player dated three cheerleaders at the same time the night before
c. The three beers your buddy had during the game
d. The number of genders Lady Gaga claims

7. Rejection

a. A blocked shot
b. That awful feeling when the letter from the book publisher comes back
c. What your stomach says to the Thai Hot noodles you had for dinner at that quaint little restaurant by the arena
d. What Sandra Bullock shouted at husband Jesse James, after winning her Oscar

8. Yes! ...and it counts!

a. What some announcers shout when a player scores and is fouled
b. What some fans shout when a ref is knocked down accidentally in the course of play
c. What some coaches shout when they graduate a player who went to class as often as I eat broccoli
d. What Jeff Bridges shouted when he won his Oscar

9. 360 jam

a. A dunk in which the player does a 360 degree spin
b. When the visiting team manager stuffs empty water bottles into an overfull trash can
c. When the home team janitorial staff stuffs the visiting team manager into the formerly overfull trash can that they just emptied
d. Jelly made of something round

10. No look pass

a. When a player makes a pass without looking at the target player
b. When the team bus driver pulls out into the passing lane without seeing that Prius full of the opposing team's fans
c. When a player asks a cheerleader out without realizing she's dating the team captain
d. When the U.S. Congress tries to pass a bill without actually voting on it

11. Diaper dandy

a. A talented freshman player
b. Somebody's basketball shorts are riding too low
c. That smart-aleck kid in the third row who shouts, "Stoo-pid!" everytime a player misses a free throw
d. What a coach makes when the opposing team makes a 70-foot, buzzer-beating shot to win the game

12. Full court press

a. When a team puts defensive pressure on the other team the moment they get the ball
b. When reporters start asking players questions before the game is over
c. When you know your uniform has been ironed really well
d. The media coverage of the latest celebrity divorce

13. Run and gun

a. An offense that pushes up the court and shoots quickly
b. Rushing through a fast food meal to avoid paying for overpriced food at the game
c. That player who got the coach's daughter pregnant and then transferred to Alaska-Anchorage
d. The title of Lil' Wayne's next album

Answers: The answer to each of the questions is D.***

*Thank the Lord I've been exercising or I'd be watching the Arsenal match from the local ICU.
**Like a cat with an itchy butt.
***Depending on our legal circumstances, of course

March Madness Tips

Here in the United States around this time of year, people are afflicted with "March Madness." The symptoms for this unusual malady consist of feverishly checking online brackets, the wearing of ridiculous college garb, and screaming one of the following phrases at one's telly:

1. That wasn't a foul, you stupid idiot!

2. That was a foul, you stupid idiot!

3. It went in! It went in!!

4. I can't believe you missed that easy shot, you loser!!

5. Will some one tell Billy Packer to shut the hell up about the ACC?!?

Yes, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is upon us and will be fervently watched by millions of men in America. In fact, the only ones not watching the tournament are the blokes who really fancy tall, lean, sweaty women in long shorts, as they will be watching the Women's tournament.*

The tournament is known for having several games going on at the same time, and for the number of upsets that occur. So, it's rather like the FA Cup in fast forward. It's exciting, the atmosphere is energetic, the announcing is magniloquent, and the adverts are the same ones from the Super Bowl and the Oscars, only played with even more alarming frequency.

If you're a novice at watching several hours of basketball on American television at a go, here is some helpful advice for getting through it all with your sanity only mildly impaired:

• The referees will make bad calls. They will do this with surprising regularity. It's not just that basketball is a fast-moving game and referees have the average fitness of a ten-pin bowler. Referees like to guess and they like being on telly. That's why there's so much drama in the gestures they employ when they march to the scorer's table to explain how that 14th seed's guard's brush with the short fringe of the top seed's center was a flagrant foul. Just get used to the idea.


• The top seeds will get all the calls. This is a corallary of the first tip known as Packer's Law. It's called this because Billy will then explain why the foul had to be called and why the top seed got 5 times as many trips to the foul line as the underdog or Cinderella teams. (Packer: "Jim, the underdog is simply not talented enough to play this team without fouling them all the time." Jim: (nods slowly and reverently) I agree completely, Billy.")


• Some of the top seeds will lose before the Final Four anyway. This cosmically balances out the silliness of the first two tips and gives the announcers a chance to shout things like, "You gotta love it when the Cinderella teams win!" and "Boy, was I wrong about that team!" Just kidding about that second one.


• The coaches will all dress like traveling salesmen or 70's-era newscasters. In fact, when I first saw the poster for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, until I read the title I thought it was a film about college basketball coaches. These chaps are an episode of What Not to Wear just waiting to happen. Except the hosts of that programme wouldn't dare approach the coaches for fear of having to do laps and line drills, which is really difficulty in all that Armani.


• You will see more perky, female cheerleaders at one time than you ever have in your entire life. They will all be wearing scandalously short skirts and bounce like kangaroos. All of them will have gigantic, muscle-bound, intellectually-challenged boyfriends on athletic scholarships. Except the Ivy-League schools, of course... no athletic scholarships.


• Each team will have at least one enormous, slow player who will get in foul trouble and have had a CBS student-athlete profile done on them at halftime during the regular season. This player will inexplicably be his teammates' favourite and will occasionally put up shots as though he were competing in the shot put.


• Some teams will run up and down the court at breakneck speed. Others will control the ball with maddening deliberation. When they meet on the court it will be like matter and anti-matter in the colour-commentator's brain.


• There will be team mascots. Each will looks like a Hanna-Barbera version of a Disney character and do at least one hommage to Jerry Lewis on camera.


• When they play "One Shining Moment" at the end of the tournament, Jim Nantz will silently cry on Billy Packer's shoulder.


• Finally, someone at sometime near the end of a close game will hit a ridiculous shot and everyone will go completely mental. That is what it is all about. Enjoy it.

*And small percentage of us will tune out of basketball altogether to watch the Olympic qualifying for football (soccer) tonight, and Super Sunday in the Premier League this weekend (Beat Liverpool! Come on You Gunners!), in and around Easter services, of course.