I have only two things to say about this year’s tournament:
1. It seems every one – from seasoned sports analysts to President Obama, a self-proclaimed expert – failed to pick a single team that ended up in the Final Four, let alone picking Duke or Butler to win the championship.
This should finally disabuse all of us of the rational expectation that the most talented team will win. For, more than any other sporting event, the NCAA tournament seems susceptible to the triumph of emotion over talent. What else explains Duke and Butler….
2. Am I the only one who got the eerie sensation that I was watching a time-capsuled game from the 1950s; i.e., in the very early days of desegregation…? Frankly, it looked like an over-hyped high-school game, which had me wondering if any of those white boys could even jump high enough to dunk….
Meanwhile, does anybody care that UConn’s women’s team is about to complete a second-consecutive perfect season by winning another NCAA championship tonight?
Objectively speaking, however, the biggest story in basketball this year is the way Connecticut (UConn) crowned a perfect season by winning the NCAA (women’s) championship last night in a rout over Louisville 76-54. Because UConn not only ended its season 39-0, its players were so dominant that they won each game with unprecedented ease by double digits.
Now just imagine the hoopla if North Carolina [or Duke this year] had won its championship in such convincing fashion.
[UConn routs Louisville…, TIJ, April 8, 2009]
Well, they’re about to do it again. Yet they get no respect, not even from Obama !
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.