I love the road to the Final Four. Love it. It stems back to when I was in high school and first found out about the tournament. That was a time when Michael Jordan played for UNC and Patrick Ewing played for Georgetown. You could see they were going to be stars and from that time, I developed a sixth-sense-like ability to spot future talent. Maybe I should have been an athletic talent scout. Hmmm…

I saw it in Dan Majerle when he was a student at Western Michigan. He played my school and basically shut-down our team single-handedly. It was like watching a miracle happen. Of course, he went on to play in the NBA and do very well. No surprise… I’d seen him play…

So, I have to give a special mention to two small schools who really showed a lot of promise. St. Bonaventure and Western Washington. They both had some players to keep watching. Matthew Wright and Richard Woodworth are the two to watch…

Fast forward to 2012. March Madness. I tried something new this year. I did three brackets: One the normal way, just picking as I went through the brackets; One based on the schools’ I’ve historically liked and disliked and one base soley and strictly on the numbers. Guess which one did the best… THE NUMBERS!

That was somewhat disheartening… who wants to believe there is a scientific way to decide winners and losers. It discounts the triumph and joy of the underdog winning. BUT, the second best bracket was my gut. The lesson here is this: Picking winning teams is an extreme exercise – go one way or the other, but, don’t try to blend them…

I also observed something that is obvious, but, I hadn’t acknowledged it. Once we get through the initial rounds, the top seeded teams tend to hold true to their seed. Kentucky was the only #1 seeded team in the Final Four – they won. Really very tidy. And as a real gift to the tournament, two #2 seeds got knocked out in the first round; Missouri and Duke. Both losing to really small, 15 seed schools. We’ve always gotta have one or two, I just wish it wasn’t Duke. I’m on the coach K train for life…

Thereafter there was little madness. Until the night before the championship game. Apparently, the kids of the University of Kentucky decided, the Wildcats didn’t bring enough fire to the court, so, they decided to set fire to everything in the city! Most people riot because they lose, not because they win. Kids in Lexington must not have gotten that memo.

They overturned cars and broke windows… they even set sofas on fire. Why? Where is the joy of victory? The kid’s in Louisville didn’t set anything on fire and they lost. They were feeling the agony of defeat but didn’t turn it into madness. And the championship game – as it turns out – was somewhat uneventful. Kentucky won easily. No fun there…

Ohio State on the other hand should have burned down the city of Columbus. Okay, so I’m just looking for any reason to burn down the city of Columbus – not a good place to enjoy life. But, they got all the way to the Final Four and managed to keep a lead the entire game. Then in the last 5 minutes, blew the entire lead and lost. That – warrants – FIRE! But, Columbus is too boring for that.

But, like I said, I don’t claim anything in the State of Ohio except Cleveland. And all things Cleveland – good or bad. If this had been Cleveland State – I might have helped the kids overturn cars and burn furniture. Then again, for Clevelanders, we don’t need to lose a basketball game to decide to burn things down… We’ve got enough agony of defeat to keep up in matches for decades… >:-(

See you next year for March Madness…