North Carolina vs Villanova, 8:19 PM Central Time, TBS
It's the finals! Tonight we crown a national champion of college basketball after close to a month of tournament action. Because let's be real, if you're reading this you probably stopped paying attention to basketball after the Illinois game and the whole Mizzou SEC thing. But a consolidated season can be fun, despite the fact neither Final Four game was particularly close. OU just has this "get to the playoffs and then be annihilated" thing going for them and North Carolina just toyed around with Syracuse.
Do you have a chance in your tourney pool? Was your bracket busted that first Thursday (Hello, Syracuse and Middle Tennessee!)? Our standing on that is, we don't care! Caring takes effort. Congrats on you doing what you do/did. And if you made some money, we could use some of that.
The rules & tidbits: (part six. Well, that's not very French at all!)
- As noted, it ends all nice and neat with the top two kenpom rated teams. A win for stats! (Why isn't this just a food and tennis blog already?)
-Sucks to be OU. Worst lost in final four history. 'Nova scored more points in the second half than OU had the whole game. Ouch. The stats from that game are just hilarious. 'Nova missed fewer shots than OU had turnovers. Then again, what would we know about playing in a final four? Womp, womp.
-'Nova's average point differential in the last five games averages to around 24. That's impressive.
-It's been over three decades, barely, since 'Nova won, and the last time North Carolina lost the title game was in 1981.
-1.6% of ESPN's brackets correctly picked the title game.
Anyway, it's time to focus on THE GAME.
#1 North Carolina vs #2 Villanova
(Editor's note. 'Nova color, as, well, we think they'll win and, while it won't matter much in the standings, one of us (ahem) is among the very few in the RMN bracket to select 'Nova as the winner. Should count for something!)
Fun fact, these are the top 2 teams in Kenpom, so I guess this whole thing makes sense. A 1 versus a 2. ACC Champion vs Big East (and Creighton) Champion. Blue jersey vs other Blue jersey. Nike brand vs Jordan brand. And I'm gonna stop there to just say to all you Carolina fans that think you're special because you're sponsored by Nike but it's the Jordan Jump Man as your logo, your team isn't. It's all just marketing, and you're all just pawns in this sick game. The NCAA should just take some of the money it gets for the tourney and pay all the employers for the Monday after selection Sunday 'cause nobody's doing anything remotely useful. And even if they were, they still screw it up!
Remember when we thought Mizzou was gonna hire Jay Wright and then we hired Kim Anderson. MAN, that was fun. Kind of like that reporter that said Sean Miller was in Pittsburgh taking that job when he was strolling through cactus land. Damn, we were WAY off.
So what do you look for in this game? What do you think matters most? Will Roy Williams stay upright? It all really doesn't matter, because if UNC doesn't win this game (and we think it's Nova anyway) they're not winning anything for a while because the NCAA is going to drop the hammer on them with the quickness. You can't just make up a class and give grades for it, that's some Alabama level bs right there. But underwater basket weaving is fun (and hard).
Sadly there is no third place game between Syracuse and Oklahoma (Buddy H is no player of the year, clearly) because the NCAA is dumb. You know what Boeheim and Kruger are doing tomorrow? Going back to their summer jobs as greeters at their local Wal-Marts. Think about it and tell me they don't look exactly like two guys who would fit well in a blue vest with a doofy smiley face on it. See, you can't, it makes perfect sense. But only as greeters, no, they can't be bothered to stop people from stealing the dumb baskets, I mean, you need four or five items, the cart is a hassle! Target for life, yo. Eh, screw it, just order everything online.
And that will do it for this season's Lazy Fan's Guide to the NCAA tournament. We'll be back this coming end of Summer or early Autumn for season 2 of the Lazy Fan's Guide to SEC Football where the takes will be just as hot as the beer is cool.
Enjoy the game tonight, and don't waste your time with that Ne-Yo "One Shinning Moment" garbage, stick with Luther the one and only version. We can all just be glad that Tyus Edney isn't featured anymore or ever again, we hope? Anytime those silly announcers mention six or more seconds on the clock, can they get down the court? Well, yes. We're WELL AWARE one can. But we don't hold grudges or anything like that.