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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 4th 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 1st place, $226.25 for 2nd, $135.75
for 3rd and $90.50 for 4th. Honestly, any of those payouts are pretty
good.
Here’s the final game outcomes:
If Gonzaga wins:
Matt M. wins 1st.
Paul Kr. wins 2nd
Scott H. #1 wins 3rd
Klei R. #1 wins 4th
If Baylor wins:
Mark A. #1 wins 1st.
Howard S. #1 wins 2nd.
Tomas L. #2 wins 3rd
Hutch H. #2 wins 4th.
Good luck to everyone!!!!!
