This will come as a shock to many of you, but when we were in middle school, we were … how shall we put this … nerds. We programmed games on our TI-85. We were on the Geography team. We lost the only fight we were in. (In our defense, that guy is now a captain in the Air Force. But still.)

There but for the grace of God (and failure to master game theory at age 12) go we …

But we digress. The NCAA Tournament was the proverbial pork chop around our neck - running pools was pretty much the only way to get the cool kids to talk to us. We sat in class and drew hundreds of brackets from memory so that our classmates could submit as many brackets as they wanted. (Photocopiers and rural middle school didn’t mix.) And for ourselves, we would fill out dozens of iterations of our own picks, because we were somehow more indecisive then than we are now.

So it is with great pleasure that we received a link to the super-fantastic-awesome Dream Tournament from Ed at National Sports Rankings. Click through and simulate the tournament (using the current ESPN Bracketology projected field) to your heart’s delight - the replay button is at the bottom of the page. Oral Roberts in the Elite Eight? Possibility! Brigham Young playing for the title? Possibility! Arizona, #10 seed and champion? Possibility! Carolina losing in the second round to Baylor? FUCK YES.

THE GAME EVERYONE TALKED ABOUT (SORT OF)

Enjoy the Enjoyment!
Villanova 82, Syracuse 63

[dusts off Hoyas hat from senior year]

YEEEAAAAHHHHH!!! What you got, Boeheim? Huh? You got nothing. Two straight years, you little mediawhore, you’re on the outside looking in. How’s the losing feel, Mr. Carmelo’s-Coattails? Does it feel bad? Does it hurt? Good. Get the hell out of here, and take your fruity little team with you.

[takes off homer hat]

Seriously though, Jim Boeheim is a prick and a half. (We’re counting Coaches vs. Cancer when we say that - he was a full-on triple prick before that.) People forget this because he laughs and smiles with the PTI guys, but before Carmelo Anthony, he was famous for throwing his players under the bus and choking in big games. Oh, and NCAA violations. We see no reason why a down-year, mercenary-led championship should change this assessment of Boeheim, especially given his moronic advocacy for an expanded NCAA tournament to accommodate his mediocre teams. Every time his team under-performs, we smile, and imagine him kicking a puppy. (Homer hate still clearly on.)

So … um, yeah, nice win Villanova. But don’t be too good, ya here?

THE GAMES YOU SHOULD HAVE WATCHED INSTEAD

We Can’t Count, but We Can Ball
The Entire Atlantic 10 14 Opening Round

There was absolutely nothing you could refuse to love about this day of games. First of all, they are playing the tournament in Atlantic City, which is like the Pac-10 deciding to host its conference championship game (if they were eligible to have one) in Las Vegas. We hope these players are sending thank you notes to Eliot Spitzer, whose own hooker-fueled mess is likely keeping them out of the Tri-State headlines.

Just like Client-9.

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