The Good Rabbi's Blog

Well, it's here again. That great period of reality television I call March Madness. Today is selection Sunday. It should be interesting to see how stupid the seeding process is this year. I swear the NCAA peeps just get hammered and say things like "ok, I've got it, we'll put Baylor in as the number one seed. That should keep people guessing.." More details will be coming soon. Go Heels!

Well, this weekend has definitely proven to be a bracket-busting weekend for me. My final four predictions were not impacted at all until today, but this is what makes things so exciting.

First, the Kansas Jayhawks were downed by Bucknell (I admit, I've never heard of Bucknell either, and I follow college basketball). If that wasn't enough, Syracuse was brought down by Vermont. Of course, this was entirely due to the fact that Syracuse was playing at the high-school level.

Well, now it's starting to get underway - that wonderful time of year. No, not the holiday season (even though that started back in September), but the six months of excruciating pain, sweet victories, and of course, bad refereeing that make up the college basketball playing season. Six months that all build to that glorious time of the year when all things are focused business, yet I can't seem to get any work done. That wonderful NCAA tournament - what do the prospects look like?

Well, to be honest, I don't know. The ACC looks very promising, and as usual looks to be the toughest conference in the country again. UNC does look like it has some incredible depth, but only time will tell what kind of personality clashes could hobble that. I don't know what the future holds, except that Duke, in the words of Eric Cartman, should be kicked "sqaaaa in the nuts!"

This is it! The time of year when all is consumed by the holy game - college basketball. This is not to be confused with the Holy game (note the capital H) of hockey. I love this time of year. I make my predictions, and follow the progress of the tournament religiously. I also have my share of maddening moments when I realise that things are progressing very differently from the way I thought they would.

In this vein, it's worth noting that Duke university and Georgia Tech have gone down in the first round. That hasn't happened since 1824. After forty minutes of running around and all sorts of weird ball-handling, VCU and UNLV left Duke and Georgia Tech (respectively) crying like Nancy Kerrigan. As much as I hate Duke (and I'm indifferent about Georgia Tech), I must admit, it's disappointing to see ACC teams drop so quickly. The ACC is bar none, the toughest conference in the country, and Duke and Georgia Tech are most certainly better teams than VCU and UNLV.

At least my picks for the final four are still on track. I have North Carolina, Texas A&M, Florida, and UCLA going to the final four. I think the championship game will be between North Carolina and UCLA, with North Carolina taking it all. That assumes, of course, that North Carolina doesn't just forget to play defense like they do every so often.... :-)

It'll be a fun game, that's for sure... Go Heels!

As everyone knows, there are three holy seasons in my life - the annual chase for the Stanley Cup, World Cup (every few years), but most importantly, the NCAA post-season college basketball tournament. Well, March madness starts today! As such, I'm posting my brackets (PDF). We'll see how everything shapes up. A few notes:

First, you'll notice that I have three number 1 seeds going to the final four. While normally, I wouldn't put more than two there, I believe that this year the number 1 seeds are particularly strong, with one exception.

That would be Memphis. Memphis is an extremely overrated team that plays in a weak conference. I think they're going down fairly hard fairly early.

On that note, I have Tennessee losing to Butler in the second round. Tennessee has shown some very worrying cracks lately that lead me to believe that they won't go very far in the tournament.

I think that Wisconsin is the dark horse this year. They certainly will not be taking the crown, but I think they will probably knock out Georgetown, and (dare I say it?) they stand a decent shot at knocking out Kansas.

All told, I think this is Carolina's year. Hopefully they won't fuck it up.