Final Four
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I guess it's just two now, but the US college Division I men's championship is tonight.
It's the end of March Madness, which is one of the biggest sports events in the US each year, often because of the Cinderella stories. Those teams that aren't expected to win, but do anyway. It's fascinating that these schools, who often have little actual alumni or fans in the stands, captivate so much of the crowd that they get the benefit of a home game.
This year George Mason, seeded 11th out of 16 possible rankings defied the odds by beating Michigan State, whose coach has won the championship before and been to the final 4 four times. Then they beat North Carolina, the defending champions from last year. Next they won the battle of the Cinderellas when they beat Wichita St., the 7th seed before taking out the heavily favored UConn Huskies.
I watched parts of 3 of those games, including the UConn win, and saw the crowd cheering so hard to Mason. It's hard at home to sit by and not get excited when you see the underdog really coming through against the favorite. Especially when the underdog is taking on the top team.
Unfortunately that ended Saturday night and the two feel good stories, George Mason as the Cinderella story and LSU after Hurricane Katrina, both were beaten soundly. I watched the Mason game, kept rooting for them to come back, but it wasn't to be.
So I'm not so excited for tonight, but still looking forward to watching the game. It should be a good one and I'll root for Florida.
After baseball that is. Today's opening day for the Rockies and my son and I are heading down for the afternoon.
Steve Jones
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As is customary, it is snowing in Milwaukee on Opening Day. W00T!
jg
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I was rooting for George Mason and LSU too. They had amazing runs. I'm not a sports expert, but I disagree with some of the commentators I heard who said that this year does not mean that there is parity in the NCAA, that some teams (like UNC) lost key players, so don't expect this same level of upsets next year.
The reason I disagree is that George Mason and LSU beat several very strong teams, even if those teams had lost some key players. That contradicts any assertion that these teams somehow got lucky. Luck gets you one round in this tournament, maybe two. But to get to the Final Four means there is something real in the team. George Mason and LSU did finally get beaten, but by teams that didn't seem any stronger than Duke or UCONN on paper (Florida, UCLA). That's no fluke, in my opinion; that's being stopped by competition every bit as good as all the others, and on another day, even those games might have gone the other way.
I really enjoy this tournament and don't really care who wins tonight. I'll have fun either way. And I expect many similar upsets next year, especially if the traditional top teams think that lower seeds can't beat them.
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A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html -
One of the guys on the Slate.com podcast said that he "was one of the 3 people in america who don't pay any attention to March Madness". I'm number 2 of 3.
My White Sox's opener got rained out last night. Which came right after the Indians came even at 3-3. Act of God?
Edit - never mind, I went to bed after the rain delay - looks like it finished and the Sox won. woot.
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