March Madness Bracket Blues - But Eagles Soar

After a weekend of green, beer, and basketball, Bostonist is drained. It all started for us 10 years ago when our Western Mass. roots were honored as UMass Amherst team went to the Final Four with Coach Cal. and Marcus Camby (who later cost the Final Four standing for “improper gifts” – jewelry and prostitutes). Since then we’ve faithfully filed out our brackets each season. Sometimes we pick the underdogs for an upset and sometimes we glean knowledge from those who have followed entire season. We usually only catch a dozen or so games before the Madness begins. This year seems to be a particularly bad year for our bracket. It’s not any consolation that Dick Vitale is sitting in our boat for the Final Four selections.

Everyone in our pool is holding a bracket that looks like [insert favorite “thing with lots of holes” reference here]. We may not be holding a winning ticket, but the upsets and nail-biters keep us watching on the edge of our seats. The Cinderella story so far seems to be Bradley, who overtook Pittsburg in the best TV score box story of the weekend. “Brad Pitt” pictured here (no photoshop involved!) came courtesy of CBS and a friend who snuck away from Telegraph Hill where we were watching the parade to catch up on the tournament action – unnecessary editorial comment came with the picture: look, Brad’s at 69. Two of the teams who helped punch holes in our bracket, Bradley and Georgetown will face tough competition from higher ranked Memphis and Florida (respectively) George Mason matches up against fellow underdog-turned-winner Wichita State in Sweet Sixteen action next weekend. To be honest we had George Mason coming out of round 1 alive, but the round 2 win caught us off guard.

After Saturday’s win over Montana, Bostonist was a little happier with the outlook for the Boston College Eagles and their chances to advance. With a spot in the sweet sixteen for the first time in a dozen years, the double-overtime game in the first round was a bit too close for our taste, the win over Montana a little bit more commanding. The tough fight against Villanova will be next, Bostonist has our fingers crossed that the Eagles will soar again – If we have any chance of stealing the name “City of Champions” from Brockton we need BC to come through this year, it’s been a drought.

Note to Londonist (a disambiguation from wikipedia): "March Madness comes from the phrase 'Mad as a March Hare'. In England, the phrase March Madness may refer to wasteful spending at the end of a budget year. The rest of this article covers the use of the term in reference to the NCAA basketball tournament, also known as the Road to the Final Four. But we sill are using the graphic of a March Hare. Just be thankful we didn't put this post to music by Ashcroft