Okay, now I got this bracket thing figured out: It’s UConnDETROIT (KRT) – I finally figured out the NCAA tournament.
Admittedly, this comes a week after I first tried to figure it out, and my bracket is now in charred pieces, but I think I’ve got it.
The genius of the NCAA tournament, the reason it creates so much drama, is that it makes slight differences seem huge.
When a No. 7 seed beats a No. 2, people call it a major upset.
In fact, it can be the equivalent of the No. 25 team in the nation beating the No. 8 team, an upset, but not stunning.
And in a one-point second-round game, the team that wins gets five days of love, while the loser must listen to polite fans ask, “What the hell is wrong with those chokers?”
Win on a last-second shot, and you’re a hero. Lose on a last-second shot, and you’re fired.
The NCAA tournament allows no room for subtlety, let alone ambiguity. This is its charm; this is its flaw.
While you ponder my deep, insightful justification of my own horrendous picks, we turn the podium over to Saginaw, Mich.’s own Anthony (Peepers) Roberson.
After his Florida Gators lost in the first round, Peepers told the Orlando Sentinel: “I don’t think Montana was a better team than Florida.”
Probably not.
But Peepers, the team you played was Manhattan.
The giveaway was the jerseys, which had the word “MANHATTAN” written cleverly across the chest.
In Roberson’s defense: Florida coach Billy Donovan, no genius, probably prepared his team for the Manhattan game by showing film of Montana.
We now move on to the heroes of the week, the Fighting Illini of Illinois, who won this year’s contest to see who got to eliminate Cincinnati on the first weekend.
In doing so, the Illini cleansed the tournament of Cincy coach Bob Huggins and his band of surly malcontents.
Thanks, fellas.
Unfortunately, the Illini also earned the ESPN Around The Horn “Everybody in Here Please Shut Up” Award for making a huge deal out of Cincinnati’s pregame trash-talking.
The Illini said it provided motivation.
Gentlemen, this is not fall practice.
It is not the Diet Coke With Lime Preseason Invitational.
It is the NCAA tournament.
If you need somebody to call you a “weak mutha” to get motivated, you have problems.
And on another note: Weak mutha?
Who do I think I am?
Less than a week after the tournament started, three-quarters of the teams are gone.
People who spent the week knee-deep in brackets, watching two games with each eyeball while penciling in scores with their toes, can resume their lives.
Unfortunately, I’m a sports writer, so this is my life.
At the current moment, my life is missing three Final Four teams.
That’s because last week, in our rush to print the paper, we made some minor editorial mistakes.
The big one: Under the national champion portion of my bracket, where it said “Stanford,” it should have said “Connecticut.”
There is a good reason for this error, under our complex computer system, I am forced to make picks in Sanskrit; as scholars have often noted, the Sanskrit for “Connecticut” is shockingly similar to “Stanford,” which is how that kind of thing happens. Ask Peepers.
Why Connecticut? Largely because UConn center Emeka Okafor reminds me of Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon. We’re talking court skills here, not facial features.
If you don’t believe it, check back in 10 years.
Unless I’m wrong.
Then let’s just forget about it, OK?
___c 2004, Detroit Free Press.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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