NCAA Blogging: The Tournament After Two Rounds

And we're back. After a very Hoppy Easter (Good god, now I'm doing it...) with more big meals than should be legally allowed, I have gorged myself on honey-glazed ham, hard boiled eggs, marshmellowy confections, and lepus-formed chocolates. And wondered if it is indeed possible to overdose on college basketball.

I pretty much watched a portion of every game over the weekend in between stuffing myself. Good times.

My bracket, of course, is a complete and utter mess. In my defense, I did manage to pick a #12 vs. #13 match-up. Which did occur (Twice.). I just managed to pick an entirely wrong regional for it to take place in. I'd also banked big on Clemson and Drake. Ah well.

If you're looking for in-depth coverage of the games - beyond "Mmm, that was some good ball" - you'll have to look elsewhere. My basketball analyzing skills are evidently poor so I'll not subject you to them further.

What I am concerned with right now is whether I should accept a friend's offer and plunk down some cash on tickets to the Midwest finals. They're taking place in Ford Field this year. In addition to being a huge venue for college basketball (Seriously, they're probably going to set attendance records. Which is good. Sounds like the weather is going to be piss poor, though, which is not.) the football stadium right in my backyard. And, now, I'm wondering if it's worth my time to go or not.

Well, alright, I'm wondering if I should spend good money I probably don't have on shitty seats to watch a game take place half a mile away. But, then, I'm both cheap and poor.

Four teams that have made it to the Round of Sixteen in scenic Detroit Top seed Kansas has been on cruise control so far. Unsexy but consistently successful Wisconsin from the three seed - seriously, every year they win ugly but they still win. Everybody's favorite underdog story this year, Davidson. But Vilanova is an even lower seed, having battled from the #13 spot (Meaning they were pretty much among the last teams to make the field since the lower seeds are typically passed out to the automatic qualifiers from mini-major conferences with names that sound like Athletic Mad-Libs.) past fellow upstart Siena and, sigh, mighty Clemson.

Thanks to Davidson, we've managed to avoid the apocalyptic showdown between Wisconsin and Georgetown that would feature two teams trying to slow the tempo down so much that time would warp back upon itself and so destabilize physical laws in the localized vacinity that it might actually be an entertaining game. So that's good. But, really, none of the teams really set my light on fire.

Sure, Kansas might be headed to the Championship (If they can get past UNC, of course. If they manage to make it out of their region, of course. I'm completely out of the predicting game here.) but who cares about who wins the tournament? I can't even tell you who was champion last year. I can, however, tell you about George Mason. It's all about the upsets and the last-second buzzer beaters. The up one second and down the next. Fans flooding the floor for some team that no one's ever heard of before that's just strutted their stuff for all the nation to see. Compared to that, the calm inevitability of Kansas is boring.

Also, I'm still convinced they're going to choke.

Could be worse, could be in Charlotte where the top four seeds all held court. Not a single unexpected upset (Unless you count a 9 beating an 8, which I don't.) the whole weekend. Not even any last-second buzzer beaters. Unreal.

And, I know, Davidson is hot right now and Curry is everyone's darling. Might be nice to see him in person. He seems like a special player. And, looking deeper at the team, Davidson might be for real.

Ah well, there should be plenty of Wisconsin fans there. The Madison crowd is usually pretty fun to hang out with.