Championship Game preview

 There’s not a whole lot to say about the two games tonight that other people haven’t already said, especially if you watched ESPN at all after the game.  Essentially, the games went the exact opposite of how I expected them to go.  I figured the Houston / Baylor game would be the close one and the Gonzaga / UCLA game would be the blowout.  You would think I would be better at predicting these things, given how much basketball I watch and the fact that I make a living as a forecast analyst.

The Baylor game was a total snooze-fest.  I actually did doze off some in the second half.  That was too bad, since Houston losing also meant that my wife was knocked out of any chance at the money.  It also meant that my favorite player of the tournament, DeJon Jarreau from Houston, played in his last game as a college player.  I tend to like point guards, and he was one of the more entertaining ones to watch, at least in my opinion.

As for the Gonzaga / UCLA game, I was hoping that Gonzaga would pound UCLA into dust from the beginning of the game and then continue to grind that dust into it’s sub-atomic components as the game went on.  That clearly didn’t happen.  I don’t love this Gonzaga team.  I kinda like them.  I get that they are good and fun to watch, but I don’t love them.  However, if they win on Monday and I wind up with 4^th place, my opinion could change.  As for UCLA, I don’t hate UCLA as a general rule.  I don’t even hate this team as bad as I’m making it out to sound like I do.  I just am glad that they finally lost.  I think I had the play-in winner losing to BYU in the first round.  This UCLA team has exposed my basketball snobbery in a way I don’t like.  I love all the upsets and small-college teams winning in the first few rounds, but I don’t really want those teams around at the end.  It’s like I have a shift where I root for David at the start of the tournament, and when it gets to the end, I’m usually rooting for Goliath.  Part of that is probably because I actually want to win the pool, and Goliath, or some Goliath-adjacent team usually wins this thing.  UCLA was totally screwing that up.

That being said, UCLA was proving to be a very good team all tournament long.  You could make a good case for Johnny Juzang being the MVP of the tournament, even though he’s not going to play in the finals.  No one could stop that guy.  That was frustrating.  Even really good D that was played against him didn’t matter.  He was making tough shot after tough shot.  I kept wondering when he was finally going to miss.  I figured UCLA’s luck had to run out some time.  I didn’t think you would need a miracle heave from 30 feet to do it.  It was all very sudden, but maybe that’s what it took to beat this UCLA team once and for all.  Oddly, Mick Cronin was a coach who pretty reliably underperformed in the tournament when he was at Cincinnati, so maybe this is a new trend I’ll have to take note of.

As for this being the greatest basketball game of the last 25 years or whatever praise people are heaping on it, I’m not so sure.  Was it an all-time Top 10, probably.  It was extremely well played and very entertaining, and the ending…  But, I was in the building for the Villanova / North Carolina final in 2016, and I thought that was as good a game as I’ve ever seen – and that was for the Championship.  If Gonzaga happens to lose on Monday night, it will take the luster off this won a little.  Plus, the last NCAA tournament was won in OT, so that game wasn’t bad either.

All right, so there’s only 8 people left alive who can win.  Another nice thing about UCLA losing is the last outcomes that included ties are now gone.  We won’t need any tie-breaker scores (which I like).  If you remember the payouts from my introductory letter (which most of you probably didn’t read), the payouts are 50% / 25% / 15% / 10%.  The math of that works out to be: $452.50 for 1^st place, $226.25 for 2^nd, $135.75 for 3^rd and $90.50 for 4^th.  Honestly, any of those payouts are pretty good.

Here’s the final game outcomes:

If Gonzaga wins:

Matt M. wins 1^st.

Paul Kr. wins 2^nd

Scott H. #1 wins 3^rd

Klei R. #1 wins 4^th

 

If Baylor wins:

Mark A. #1 wins 1^st.

Howard S. #1 wins 2^nd.

Tomas L. #2 wins 3^rd

Hutch H. #2 wins 4^th.

 Fun facts: I can still win 4^th, which I will totally take if I get it.  Also, if Baylor wins, my Father-in-law will get 3^rd, which is also pretty cool.

Good luck to everyone!!!!!