On the Plate … 3/13/05

You Can't Make a Tournament Without Breaking Some Bubbles

Championship Week's finest lesson indeed.

I should know. Believe me. Guess how much of my life I've spent "on the bubble"? It's f'ing ridiculous. Roughly 5 years. Say what? Say word. Check it. I'm 26 years old and I've been an avid hoops fan since I was 7. (Yes, 7. More on this in a second.) That means I have 19 years of hoops fanaticism under my belt. I have been a Villanova fan from day one and jumped on the Vanderbilt train in 1996 when I first arrived in Nashville as an undgrad. In other words, as a fan of these two squads I'm always on the bubble. If the hoops season runs from mid-November through the first week of April, I'd say that life on the bubble starts when conference ball officially kicks off - January 1- and ends when it all ends - Selection Sunday. Thus, 3 months of bubbliciousness, aka a quarter of the year. So if I've been a hoops junkie for 19 years, I've spent roughly 4 ¾ years of my life "trying to stay alive". Throw in a few mid-summer recruiting panic attacks and some intense Maui Invitationals here and there and I'm looking at 5 years of my life spent on that damn bubble. Pretty amazing, huh? (Or sad, depending how you look at it.)

You want to talk bubble? Let's talk some f'ing bubble…

Busted…Texas A&M, Georgetown, Virginia Tech, Indiana, Miami, Vanderbilt

Still fencing…Notre Dame, DePaul, UAB, Iowa, Maryland

Bubble-Shoes-to-Dance-Shoes…The DTA, Iowa State, West Virginia, Minnesota

The way my math works out after the Utah State's and New Mexico's of the world did their dirty work on Saturday night is that there are 3 spots left. So take all of the "still fencing" teams from above, add in any small conference squads like Buffalo, Wichita State, St. Joe's etc and try to figure it out. It's tough. If it were up to me I'd take Iowa, Notre Dame and flip a coin between UAB and DePaul. Remember when I said I don't understand the RPI. Yea, well I don't. I mean I understand the math, kind of, but the whole concept just seems ridiculous to me. How the hell does Buffalo have a better RPI than Notre Dame? More importantly, how does the Pac 10 have the second highest conference RPI? Doesn't make sense. In other words, I'm always taking squads from big conferences in the last few bubble spots. Why? If Notre Dame played Buffalo, I'd bet that the Stardust would have the Irish giving points. So there it is. Sorry Terps fans. Getting triple-sow-cowed by Clemson doesn't get you in.

To be honest I'm kind of partial to DePaul. I want my boy Quemont Greer to dance again. Quemont. You can't beat that junk if you try.

To be brutally honest, I don't know why I am including Notre Dame. The Irish stink. And Chris Thomas is miserable. Has there been a more overhyped player in the nation recently? Can I start calling Thomas "Felipe Lopez Junior"?

Talking about not getting in…the door was wide open for my Dores on Thursday and they blew it. After losses by Notre Dame and Maryland, all Vanderbilt had to do was win one and the "smart folks" said they would have been a lock. They had to beat the smallest team in Division I - Auburn. And they couldn't do it. In fact, they got throttled. At one point, the Dores were down 21 points in the second half. Pathetic. It totally sucked. Especially after last year's run was so damn amazing. It would have been fun to have the kids involved again this year.

How about the DTA? They may be dumb, but they've come to play at the right time of the year. Little Herbie Sendek's kids are going dancing somewhere. It's a shame Vandy can't play them in the second round again this year.

Was I happy about Villanova's loss to WVU? Not at all. Am I worried about the Cats in the tournament? Not at all. Am I happy to be writing "Cats" and "tournament" in the same sentence? You bet.

Guess who looks to be gaining that familiar scary form right about now? Yep yep. I told you so…the Yellow Jackets.

Speaking of G-Tech, I have a theory. I think that this year's winner is going to be a G-Tech of last year. I don't think that UNC or Illinois is going to win it all. I think a #4 or #5 seed is going to get hot and go nutty in the Dance. The top seeds aren't playing the best ball right now. Just my $0.02. My "Third Cent"? As much as I hate to say it, watch out for Duke. If UNC is the "best team in the country," where does that leave the Devils? They owned UNC both times they played.

Poor Darius Washington Jr. Misses 2 of 3 free throws to send Memphis to the Dance. At least he knows Coach Calipari will reward him with some fur for his efforts. March has been unusually cold in Memphis under Coach Cal.

If Mississippi equals UMiss, doesn't Mississippi State equal UMissState? Definitely. Thanks for the head's up, Coach.

Oakland. Cinderella central. They were my new favorite team until I found out the school is in Rochester, Michigan. Weak. I want Oaktown, Mack 10s and arguments about 50 Cent versus The Game. Now, that would be a Cinderella story.

Some thoughts/observations from the past few days of action…

What would have been the over/under on time elapsed before I was killed if I had jogged up and down Route 1 in College Park Thursday after the Maryland game wearing my Clemson T-shirt, waving a Clemson flag, and yelling "3-peat"? My guess was 6 minutes.

Doesn't UNC's Melvin Scott look like Papa Smurf with his new beard?

What's the better ad…the Burger King ad with Hootie and Carmen Electra or the Diet Coke ad with the f'ing biscuit on roller-skates? I love that damn biscuit.

While I'm on the subject of ads, the ESPN Cinderella-sneaker ad is absolutely, abso-f'ing-lutely, brilliant.

The Colonel told me that Coach K is looking to take over the Clemson job…he wants to go to a program than can beat Maryland.

The All-Cheerleader game of the Week…LSU/Kentucky in the SEC semi-finals. Yowsa.

Favorite tattoo of the week…Memphis' Arthur Barclay's tattoo that simply reads "Goo." Amazing? You bet.

Final thought as The Show nears…

I'm nervous. Where will the Cats end up? I'm guessing a #5 seed in Cleveland. But I'm hoping for a #5 seed in Nashville. Why? Because I'm heading to NashVegas for the tournament. The CSG, Disco, The Mayor and Partyboy are heading south to get in the mix. It's going to be wild. And I can't f'ing wait.

Merry Selection Sunday kids and kiddettes. It's the most wonderful time of the year…

P.S. Yes, I have been a college hoops fan since I was 7. How so? On April 1, 1985, I officially caught the disease when I was woken up around midnight to the sound of my Dad busting open the front door, running outside on the front lawn and screaming "We won it! We won it! We won it!" after the Cinderella Cats had beaten the Hoyas. I was 7. It was a school night. It was midnight. I was asleep. Needless to say, those rules did not apply the following year. It became apparent to me that I needed to get deeply involved in "that thing" that made my Dad go temporarily insane. And I did. The following year I cried when my boy Johnny Dawkins' Duke team lost to Pervis Ellison's Cardinals from Louisville. (My uncle went to Duke. Therefore, I was a fan. As a child, I was stupid.) In 1987, I went to bed cursing Keith Smart's name as his Hoosiers beat my team of bandits - especially DC and Stephen Thompson - from Syracuse. (For the record, I'm left handed. You may notice a theme of lefty's among my "boys.") In '88, I went to bed trying to comprehend the impossible as another favorite, and heavily favored, bandit squad lost in the final. The same bandit squad that had beaten Doug West's Villanova team in the Elite 8. Stacey King's Sooners fell to Danny Manning's Jayhawks. You get the point. And the beat goes on today…Let's go Cats!