One round in, and your NCAA tourney bracket is shattered beyond belief. Why? Where did you go wrong? You calculated the assist/turnover ratio in neutral-site games played in December, but before Christmas. You searched the power rankings put out by ESPN, Sports Illustrated and The Food Network. This was supposed to be your year.
Alas, you made just a few critical errors. Your friends at FishDuck.com asked some of our readers to send in broken brackets for analysis purposes.
It took a while to uncrumple them.
We were quickly able to see a few obvious problems.
1. Mistaking “Seeding” for “Rating:” A few brackets, sadly from Corvallis, reversed the seeding, believing they were rating models. This became problematic when they predicted IPFWFU would defeat Villanova. Remember this for next year: When analyzing college basketball teams …
This is a “1” seed.
This is a “3” seed.
This is a “16” seed.
FishDuck.com also noticed some confusion in the identity of the teams involved. For example:
2. Wisconsin/Green Bay is NOT the Packers: You probably should have realized this before you made them a write-in on your tourney bracket.
The Wisconsin Green Bay Fighting Fried Cheese Curds played, and lost, in the NIT.
3. Baylor Was Not Playing Washington in the Alamo Bowl: A common misconception. Baylor’s 67-point outburst against Washington (and the finest defensive coordinator in the nation) is one football fans will remember beyond eternity. Georgia State’s basketball team could have held Baylor’s offense down better than Washington’s defense could that night.
Husky fan, after Robert Griffin III beat his team, broke his heart, made love to his girl and stole his soul.
4. “Don’t Mess With Texas?” You thought Texas, SMU or Texas Southern might be worth a look because of “Don’t Mess With Texas.” It is an impressive thing to say, isn’t it? Is it a cry for liberty, like “Remember the Alamo?” Is it a warrior howl of freedom from the most up i’s own rear end state in the Union?
Nothing so grand. It’s an anti-littering campaign.
5. Thinking Butler Was Just One Guy: No real excuse for this one.
“Really, sir. Get a grip.”
Regardless of the state of your bracket — even if you had #3 Iowa State and #3 Baylor going down within an hour of each other (and you’re a lying sack if you tell me you did) — remember one thing.
Go Ducks!
Top photo by www.wfsb.com
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Kim Hastings is a 1984 graduate of Northwest Christian College. He cut his journalistic teeth as sports editor of a paper in his home town of Fortuna, CA, and, later as a columnist for the Longview Daily News in Longview, WA.
He saw his first Oregon game in 1977 and never missed a home game from 1981 until a bout with pneumonia cut his streak short in 1997. He was one of the proud 3200 on a bitterly cold night in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1989 for the Independence Bowl, and continues to be big supporter of Oregon sports. He is an active participant on the various Oregon Ducks messageboards as “TacomaDuck.”