The great Aristotle once said, "Hope is a waking dream," and there is never a greater time to dream than the middle of March. The Ides of March may have been Caesar's downfall but for sports fans from Iowa it's the happiest time of the year. We're nearing the NFL Draft and the Packers look good (rumors of a Wes Welker in our future sound great), despite another injury prone Derrick Rose season, the Bulls still have a chance, and the Cubs, well, hope springs eternal; this is our year. However the biggest reason for unbridled optimism is this year's NCAA Tournament. Iowa State is a 3 seed, UNI a 5, and my Hawkeyes are gearing up for a Friday night showdown with Davidson. As a 7 seed it is eerily similar to their 2001 tournament where they beat Creighton only to fall to Kentucky in the second round. Why do I mention the 2001 Tournament? Perhaps it is because that was the last time we won a game in March Madness. That's right, 2001, I was 12. Here is a list of other things that happened when I was twelve: had my first girlfriend, had my first real kiss, was going through puberty, thought I was going to be a baseball player, still believed in the federal government, learned what the federal government was, was a member of a church youth group, played five sports, and I bit through a battery (no joke). It was a long time ago. Through the 14 years since I have suffered through the Steve Alford disaster years, the NW St. (Where is that?) buzzer beater, the Cincinnati game, Pierre Pierce, The Lickliter era, and the angry Fran McCaffery, but all have led to the point where we are now. And I know that UNI and ISU may go far in the tournament (And honestly I hope they do) and I'm incredibly excited for my fighting Irish to hopefully break their string of bad luck, but I'll trade it all for just one win. Give me one Iowa victory. Herky needs hope and the best time for hope, the best time for anticipation is right now. I'm really excited, but I'm not the only one. 
Everyone is excited. Everyone is excited because they all still believe that their brackets can win the ESPN tournament or the office pool or the Madness bracket they devised with their friends years ago and always manage to fall short (surely I'm not speaking from personal experience). We all believe that our gut is right, that our choices will be magic, and that this will finally be the year that we beat Taylor Clouse and Dan Miller (again surely not personal). There are some of us that agonize our selections and spend hours filling out and refilling out dozens of brackets. There are also some like my mother who picks Stanford because as she said, "they dancing tree is cute." No matter what method you use whether it is logic, your gut, research, a coin toss, or the cutest mascot it is pretty much a crap shoot in the end (unless you picked a 16 to reach the finals, then you're just dumb). In my own typically indecisive form, I filled out and submitted two brackets for each of my tournaments, one with Kentucky and the other with Arizona as champions. However, ESPN allows you to fill out up to ten brackets so in true neurotic form I present a few ways to select your bracket that may be, shall we say, less conventional.
I started out as I do every year with the coin toss and even managed to get a couple of possible teams in the final four, which included Maryland, UNC, Virginia, and SF Austin. Heads won twice in a row giving Maryland the victory over Virginia. I went with the alphabetical option, but a final four of Buffalo, Arizona, Albany, and Davidson with Albany cutting down the nets seems even more unlikely. There is the academic bracket where you select winners based on team graduation rates with Belmont beating out Duke, Zona, and Kansas in the final four. And of course there is Big Ten bias bracket where my Iowa Hawkeyes faced off against Michigan State with Wisconsin taking on Purdue. All fun, but my three favorite I decided to share with you. We will start with the least craziest and work up.
The Jordan Jones Method
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| Jordan Jones Ladies and Gentlemen |
The Jordan Jones method is actually quite simple. All you need is a bracket and one of our VCU student's Jordan Jones boredom to kick in. Suffice to say, Jordan's knowledge of College Basketball is limited at best. Let's analyze some of his picks. First round upsets include Valpo, Indiana, Wyoming, Dayton, Belmont, OK St, Harvard, Ole Miss, Georgia St, Davidson, UAB, UCLA, and LSU. Jordan decided to go with UAB over ISU, Wyoming over UNI, and Davidson over Iowa just to spite me. He went with UCLA because of an apparent emotional fit over the mentioning of SMU and in typical Jordan fashion he went with Valpo because it was a funny name. With obvious steps off the beaten path Jordan manages to have a decent elite eight with Kentucky, Indiana, Louisville,
Michigan St, Duke, Gonzaga, Wisconsin, and Georgia St. He had a great commitment to VCU, but eventually went with what in his mind was the smart choice and concluded that Georgia St, a team that one their conference tournament 38-36 and in the process tore the achilles tendon of their coach in the celebration. Although he seemed audibly pleased with Duke as a word, apparently Gonzaga was funnier so the Zags met the Cardinals with Louisville advancing and Wisconsin met Indiana with Indiana advancing, you know like anyone else would've picked. With a Louisville v Indiana showdown, Jordan showed particular skill saying, "Louisville is good right?" and declared them the winners. Obviously the Jordan Jones Method has some drawbacks but nowhere near the next concept.
The Team Nickname AKA Which One Would Win In A Fight Method
The Nickname Method is considerably more scientific than the Jones but has the drawback that it has nothing to do with basketball. This led to a magical 16 seed over 1 seed upset as the Lafayette Leopards slipped by the Villanova Wildcats. Although both wildcats in their own right, Leopards have a definitive species while a wildcat could be a tiger or could in fact be a feral cat. Upsets in this bracket came from Purdue (Boilermakers over the bearcats, because bearcats are in fact lazy creatures and Boilermakers made trains and could run them over), Buffalo, Valpo (The Crusaders over the Terrapins, while a snapping turtle is ferocious, the Crusaders are fighting for God), Ole Miss, Ok St, Texas Southern (This 2 v 15 put the Tigers vs. the Wildcats and much like the Leopards before, the Wildcats went down), Lafayette, NC State, UC Irvine, Albany (this was a terrible matchup between Albany Great Danes and the Oklahoma Sooners aka settlers of Oklahoma), Belmont, Eastern Washington, Davidson, and N. Dakota St. But for a more in depth analysis let's go deeper.
Sweet Sixteen Best Matchup: The Baylor Bears against the Texas Southern Tigers. I did far too much research into this matchup and by far too much I mean if I did any at all that would be too much. There are factors that go into this fight. Assuming that the bear in question is a brown bear they can weigh as much as 1700 pounds, they have a heightened sense of smell, they eat plants and fish, and usually are mostly vegetarian. The tiger however has a great sense of hearing, can see in 3D, have heightened touch, can climb trees and jump over a basketball hoop, and they are also predatory carnivores. However two pieces of information turned the tide. The first comes from President Theodore Roosevelt who asserts in his book Hunting Trips of a Ranchman that a Bear would win in a fight against a tiger. The second piece of information comes from a simulation from the Animal Planet which argues that the full force and power of the bear would win the day. Baylor defeats Texas Southern. Watch Animal Planet Elite Eight Best Matchup: The Duke Blue Devils vs. The Iowa State Cyclones. This was difficult because it is a tornado vs. a demon, but upon further research I found that the demon angle is a new concept. This is taken from the Duke Athletics website, "During World War I the Chasseurs Alpins, nicknamed "les Diables Bleus," were well known French soldiers. They first gained attention when their unique training and alpine knowledge was counted upon to break the stalemate of trench warfare in their native region of the French Alps. Unfortunately the Vosges Campaign in March, 1915, failed to alter the status quo even though the Blue Devils won accolades for their courage. However, their distinctive blue uniform with flowing cape and jaunty beret captured public imagination. When the United States entered the war, units of the French Blue Devils toured the country helping raise money in the war effort. Irving Berlin captured their spirit in song describing them as "strong and active, most attractive . . . those Devils, the Blue Devils of France." You can't trust the French in a storm. ISU over Duke.
Final Four Best Matchup: The Iowa State Cyclones over the Michigan State Spartans. This was a toss up. You've got the Spartans who, amongst many accolades, stood 300 strong against the Persian Empire, but then you've got a tornado or a Typhoon or a hurricane. I know that Michael Fassbender claims in 300 that they will "fight in the shade" after the Persian emissary claims their arrows will blot out the sun, but no amount of arrows can match wind speeds of an F5 and claim thousands of lives. Iowa State is victorious Championship Game: The Baylor Bears vs. the Iowa State Cyclones. Tough luck Baylor, looks like you're going to Oz. Iowa State wins the National Championship.
So we managed to come out with a possible champion from that method and while unorthodox it would lead to some interesting match ups, but if you think that method was weird wait until the final one.
The Famous Alumni As Decided by Ranker.com Method
This method, while time consuming is rather easy. You go to Ranker.com, type in each school's most famous alumni list and then you choose whatever Ranker has as the number one. Here's what I learned from this method: Ranker loves Republicans, mediocre actors, racists, and serial killers. When UCLA, the school with Alumni like Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Dean, Francis Ford Coppola, Arthur Ashe, and Carol Burnett as their famous alums you know that Ranker doesn't know what they're doing when the number one is Mila Kunis. That being said here are the first round upsets. Wofford (John Richardson owner of the Carolina Panthers over Golfer John Daly), Georgia St (Julia Roberts over Jeff Dunham), Ohio St (Jeffrey Dahmer over Boris Kodjoe), LSU (Shaq over Zach Galifinakis), Wyoming (Dick Cheney over Bill Stewart), Albany (Harvey Milk over Olivia Munn), and Davidson (Patricia Cornwell over Ashton Kutcher).
Sweet Sixteen Best Matchups: (1) Butler vs. Wichita State aka the battle of the psychos. In this game we face off between Dennis Rader and Jim Jones. For those who are unaware who these two "famous" people are let me fill you in. Dennis Rader was a former US Air Force serviceman who was married with two children. He worked with security services and was a member of the Lutheran Church. Later it was found out that he was also known by another name "BTK" or Bind Torture and Kill due to the ten victims he murdered in the 70's and 80's. Jim Jones was a much simpler man, husband and father of seven, he spend time as the head of his local church. Unfortunately this position led to some turmoil in 1978 when he lead all 909 members of his church into a mass murder-suicide in the Jonestown Massacre. Obviously a tough game, but Butler and Jim Jones manage to escape with the victory. (2) ISU vs. Gonzaga or George Washington Carver vs. Bing Crosby. Sorry Carver, you might have been a brilliant man who was called "the black Leonardo", but Peanut Butter doesn't come close to White Christmas in my book. Elite Eight Best Matchup: Duke vs. Gonzaga. I love Bing Crosby but he never got 10% of the vote in Iowa 2008, that wonderful number is attached to Ron Paul. Although I am not a big fan of the man and think he would make a terrible president, you have to give credit to a man that stood up in a Republican debate and said, "It's time we quit this, it's trillions of dollars that we're spending on these wars," that took some balls. Duke Wins. Final Four Best Matchup: This one is a toss up. We have UNC and Michael Jordan vs. Cincinnati and George Clooney. Clooney net worth - $180 million vs Jordan - $1 billion. Clear cut. Jordan wins. Championship: In an all ACC final that would make Americans salivate at the thought of the championship between UNC and Duke. "Republicans buy sneakers too." Michael Jordan understands politics a little better than Ron Paul who wants to get rid of the IRS. UNC victorious!
Unbridled optimism, anticipation, and hope. No matter what method you use, we all think our bracket is the winner. I just want one victory and for the rest, maybe I'll flip a coin and get Lafayette in the final four.
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| Go get'em Lafayette |
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