It (sort of) Begins: Play-in Game, Bracket Gripes, Tear Jerking Player Stories!

I'm obligated to note the result of the shameful, but sort of necessary, "play-in" game. The UAPB Golden Lions defeated Winthrop 61-44 for the right to play Duke in the "Here, Duke, have a Final Four!" bracket, a.k.a the South. If I were Ohio State, Georgetown, or Kansas, I would be seething about Duke's path to the Final Four, not to mention West Virginia and Syracuse. Duke got the worst 2 in Villanova, the worst 3 in Baylor, and a 4 seed in Purdue that got crushed in embarrassing fashion by Minnesota in the Big 10 tournament. The same Minnesota that was exposed badly by Ohio State in the Big 10 final.

I'd like to second the concerns raised by this ESPN blog post. The March is agitated, in principle if not in practice because we get to see it in person, by a 7-10 matchup in the South that pits Richmond against St. Mary's, when there's nothing that should have prevented the committee from splitting up those 2 non-BCS teams. Let's take a look at the 2 matchups that will force a non-power conference team from the tournament when they could have tried to prove themselves against a power conference team just as easily, shall we?

8 UNLV vs 9 Northern Iowa (in Oklahoma City), 7 Richmond vs. 10 St. Mary's (in Providence). The UNLV and Richmond games are serious shames, as all 4 teams in those games are capable of advancing at their seed, and also were not as thoroughly disappointing as some of the teams in the following matchups.

Why couldn't these matchups have been split up and distributed differently among these other games? 8 Texas vs 9 Wake Forest (in New Orleans), 8 Cal vs 9 Louisville (in Jacksonville), 7 Oklahoma State vs 10 Georgia Tech (in Milwaukee), 7 Clemson vs 10 Missouri (in Buffalo).

The only team in that group that actually somewhat overachieved was Oklahoma State. All the other ones crapped the bed for extended periods of this season. Georgia Tech has 2 first round draft picks in their frontcourt and barely made it in! Texas-Wake and Cal-'Ville are just exercises in disappointment. It makes me angry just to see those underachieving teams (particularly the egregiously over-seeded Cal and the "lost 4 out of 5 coming in" Wake). It's like they somehow mutually reinforce the fan's disappointment in the other team.

At this level, you're not protecting teams as far as location all that much, but even if you take travel into account, so why not send Northern Iowa to New Orleans vs. former number 1 (remember?) Texas, send Louisville to Oklahoma City vs UNLV, and send Wake Forest to Jacksonville vs. Cal (possibly the only unfair situation because Cal would be badly outnumbered in Jacksonville, but it's not like there won't be a ton more Louisville than Cal fans in Jacksonville).

Revised 8-9 Matchups:

• 8 UNLV vs 9 Louisville (Oklahoma City): Come on, this is just juicy. Two intense teams, lots of athletes, UNLV's defense, and UK transfer Derrick Jasper possibly coming back from injury for the Runnin' Rebels to play against the Cards!
• 8 Texas vs 9 Northern Iowa (New Orleans): UNI's smothering D against former number 1 (did I already mention that?) Texas' plethora of scoring options. Anti-Muslim epithets hurled by Longhorn fans against Ali Farokhmanesh! What's not to like?
• 8 Cal vs 9 Wake Forest (Jacksonville): Instead of the 2 exercises in mutual disappointment we have now, this would be the only one.

I have no idea why this didn't happen. Don't tell me you can't move teams around at this level of the S-Curve. The 9 seeds arguably represent the 33rd to 36th best teams in the field. Gimme a break. Disappointing.

Moving to the 7-10 games, it's simpler. Just switch St. Mary's with either Georgia Tech or Mizzou. Why couldn't this happen? Seeing the Spiders try to prove itself against either the Ramblin' Wreck or the Tigers (and, conversely, seeing the Big Boys try to come up with the same intensity as a team that's scrapped for everything it's gotten this year in the quality A-10) is so much more desirable than watching a Richmond-St. Mary's game where you just feel bad one of them has to leave at the end. Rooting for the little guy drives the first weekend of the NCAA tournament! Actual rooting interests make people (those who aren't gambling), you know, want to watch. And how about the rare matchup of either St. Mary's vs. Ok. St./Clemson? What's the downside?!?!?

One of the other shames of the bracket is the 5 Temple vs 12 Cornell game. Temple deserved a higher seed for winning the A-10 regular season and tourney titles against a tough slate. The blowout loss to Kansas was bad, but the A-10 deserved more respect. Cornell was probably at least slightly underseeded.

The March is also personally disappointed that 3 New Mexico has to play 14 Montana. The Mountain West (my new crush) regular season champ Lobos play against the miracle story of championship week, Anthony F&$%ing Johnson! To reinforce my disappointment, New Mexico star Darington Hobson was profiled in touching fashion by ESPN, which strangely reprised the "Nevada person referring to black-ness of left-handed basketball player" theme of Harry Reid's delicate comments about President Obama:

"He's tall and light-skinned, and his game is real smooth," explained Reggie, a former football player at UNLV. "He was like a tall stick of butter. Long and skinny."

Hobson, "who by age 22 had attended five high schools and a junior college," could not enroll at UNM out of high school because of his academic travels and travails, and when he finally reached campus he was brought to tears:

You always wished that you were there and playing on that level. When I finally got there, I just sat in my room and just thanked God and cried for a couple of hours because I finally got to the place where I always wanted to get.

There were times I never thought I'd get there.

Meanwhile, ESPN's Andy Katz wrote an even more touching profile of Montana superhero Anthony Johnson, featuring the incredible efforts of his girlfriend-then-wife, Montana player Shaunte Nance-Johnson:

There have been package deals going on for quite a while in college basketball. But the majority of time they always involve a coach and a player, maybe a father and a player, but rarely if ever have you heard of a couple that had to come together and play basketball.

Shaunte and Anthony, both now 23 years old were married on Nov. 1, 2006, prior to the start of the Yakima season.

"He wasn't recruited, there were grade issues so he needed an extra semester to graduate from high school,'' Tinkle said. "She got him to go to a junior college. She's the one that got him to play.''

The package deal didn't stop at the junior college level. Johnson said he could have gone to other schools, even though Montana was the first to pursue him. But the two had to go together. Tinkle and women's coach Robin Selvig were in agreement that they had to take the pair.

"Robin told me after 10 minutes of offering Shaunte a scholarship, he said you've got Anthony too,'' Tinkle said.

Anthony and Shaunte have now completed the rare double -- both contributed to a NCAA appearance for Montana.

Why do we have to ensure that either Hobson or Johnson goes home before the weekend? Why?!?!

I'm frustrated, and I still hate Duke. Thoughts?