Dance, Dance

I know this is supposed to be a fantasy baseball diary, but it’s March Madness and it would be sports sacrilege not to even mention the tournament. Did I forget to mention that I’m in a tournament pool as well? I’m not the ONLY girl -- my sister is in it, too. Last week, the first and second rounds, were really painful. Not because most of my upset picks failed to go through, although that was a part of it, but because I worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I had to resort to phone calls, text messages and catching parts of games on this hair salon’s tiny TV while on my break. I think they caught on to my creepster routine of hanging around outside their doors, because I did it for the end of the World Series as well as the second round of NFL playoffs games. So, I made sure to schedule myself off early enough to catch all of tonight’s games. Sometimes it’s good to be in charge of all the scheduling.

(It’s pretty bad working in a mostly female environment when you’re a sports fan, even as a girl myself. I feel like I’m the only son in a family with five girls. I can’t talk about sports to ANYONE. I constantly have to explain things to my girls and I just don’t know how much longer I can take the blank stares. I didn’t have the guys the whole weekend and I wanted to just die.)

Recap of my picks: I hate Duke with a passion. I’m not a North Carolina fan, just a fan of every single other team that deserves to be seeded higher than Duke, but gets shafted because of the “legend” that Duke isn’t (Laettner’s miracle shot, Krzyzewski, etc.) And I’m not going to lie: I had to look up how to spell his name. Anyway, I had Duke losing in the first round. Basically, I had both the Duke and the Wisconsin upsets, but everything else went chalk, so I missed a couple of games. And thank you Texas, for losing to USC. Thanks for screwing my bracket. At least it was just a little, not like everyone else’s.

Okay I’m watching the Southern Illinois-Kansas game. What is a Saluki? Wikipedia says it’s a dog. Okay, that’s cool. In Hawaii, we were a meteorological phenomenon for a long time, so I guess I can’t hate. I think it was last year that one of their cheerleaders, I think she was Asian, fell on her back during the halftime and cracked her vertebrae. These are the things I think of when I think of Southern Illinois. That and their point guard, Tatum, kind of looks like a girl when they’re on the wide-angle shot. He has thick, pretty cornrows, and he keeps them out of his face with a headband. It’s one of those Nike ones, but he doesn’t wear it on his forehead like most guys do. He actually wears it like a girl would wear a headband. He’s killing, so it’s okay. Anyway, I have Kansas going to the championship game, so I’m needing them to win it.

Ten minutes later, it was kind of a sellout ending. Save for the missed free throws, the buzzer beater could have only tied the game. That’s no fun, because you know the better team always wins in overtime. Hah. Whatever, I got points! Whoo! It’s too bad that everyone else in my pool got points too. Except one random guy, who picked the Salukis.

What I love about watching games in Canada is they have all the games on satellite on Score54, so they do your channel surfing for you. Whenever one game goes to commercial, if the other one is in action, you get to see that. It’s pretty cool during the first round when there are eighteen million games going on at a given moment. This is laziness at its best. I don’t even have to use my energy to hit LAST.

Okay, here we go with Texas A&M and Memphis. Some guy is hurt for Memphis, but they’ve won something like seven billion straight because they play in a weak conference. What a game. It’s in San Antonio, so everybody’s an Aggie today. Pretty close game, but I have A&M going to the Final Four, so it’d be nice if they didn’t bracket bust me.

Five minutes later, it’s A&M up by 1. Acie Law IV just misses a fucking breakaway lay-up! Ouch! This sucks. Okay, here we go. HELLO DEFENSIVE REBOUNDS! Three chances to get a defensive rebound and not a chance. Instead they foul. The Aggies are supposed to have a great coach. Well, I guess there’s nothing he can do from the bench. And what was that? Fucking bracket busters.

Before the second set of games really get going here are a few things I really dislike about college ball. I despise the two half set. I don’t understand why they do halves in college basketball. In football, it’s the same in college and the pros. Why don’t they prepare their players for the pros by going with quarters? It’s especially important now that high school players have to play at least one year of college ball. If it’s because of the length of the pro game versus college, then just make it ten-minute quarters. Also, I don’t like how the three-point line is closer to the basket. I also don’t like the bonus/double bonus foul shot concept. I guess it makes sense with a five foul format, but I don’t understand it. I guess it rewards better foul shooters, but how many times do you see good free throw shooters still make the second shot after missing the first. It comes back to KILL some teams. It’s not fair because the rebounders are in movement, which can distract some shooters. Actually, who am I to comment on any mechanical element of any sport? I suck at sports -- clumsiest dancer you’ll ever meet. Except, I’m really good at wiffle ball. Hah.

There’s a Canadian on Pitt. Shit, I have to go to my second job soon (which entails pressing Play/Pause on a CD player and looking cute giving out bonus points -- more on this later). Last week, during the first round of games, I was at the bar I work at, and they had one teeny-tiny TV with the basketball games. Of course, all the plasmas and projection TVs had the hockey game on. I wish Canadians cared more about March Madness.

And of course they had two little TVs with the games on. But don’t worry! They had the Anaheim-Phoenix hockey game and the Sacramento-Phoenix basketball game on. Normally I wouldn’t mind that a Sacto game was on, but come on, it was against the Suns. Might as well not play and just give Nash & Co. the win (which is exactly what happened).

How did Ohio State come back from a twenty-point deficit? Sooner or later, and I’m thinking it’s sooner, their strategy of sending the Columbus High JV team in for the first half is going to backfire. You heard it here first. Four more games tomorrow. Somebody text message me updates. Please?

Photo Source: Georgetown Hoyas