March Hotness

Get the hottest chick from every school in the tournament and let them go head-to-head in a wet T-shirt contest…

March Madness.  To the sports geek it’s the best time of the year.  Yeah the Super Bowl is the “Big Game”, but who doesn’t love seeing a tournament where David slays Goliath several times in a weekend?

At the urging of my Twitter homie @dada_rocks, I joined his March Madness pool with some of my dad blogging and mom blogging peeps.  Through the first round I was tied for second with 25 games picked correctly.  Not great, but respectable.  I was only one game off the lead.  For now.  It’s gonna get ugly in the later rounds for reasons I will share with you later.

The only problem I have with the pool is that too many of us used our real names, so I can’t tell exactly who is who.  I do recognize @LisaKo326 from www.boobsbrainsandblogs.com.  She’s a very funny lady and currently is sitting in eighth just three games below me.  Unfortunately for me her brackets look better down the road, which means I may get beaten by a chick.  Ugh…

There have been some great stories in the tournament thus far and before I forget I want to give a big thank you to Ken Sharp, producer and co-host of Ridin’ Dirty, the DUI radio show, airing on KLAA AM 830 in LA/OC.  Ken and his co-host Julie had me on to breakdown the tournament on Thursday morning and it was a great time.  I will get the audio posted once I get it from them.  But back to the tourney…

Who doesn’t love a story about a geek school, Cornell of the Ivy League, coming in and winning their opening round game against Temple, a school known for their basketball program.  It was the first time since 1988 that Cornell was invited to the dance (and I mean that both literally and figuratively) and I would guess that after knocking off the Owls that they celebrated by NOT OPENING THEIR CALCULUS BOOKS!!!  Party on boys.  You deserve to cut loose.

Another highlight for me (though not as big a deal) was Old Dominion knocking off the Irish.  I mean no offense to @4LeafCloverGirl, but I just don’t like Notre Dame.    No offense to Irish chicks, because I do like a hot woman with red hair, but there’s just something about seeing Notre Dame lose that puts a smile on my face.  On more than one occasion I’ve envisioned Touchdown Jesus giving Michigan the finger.  I hope we can still be friends…

St. Mary’s taking down second seeded Villanova was absolutely hot!  I lived in the Bay Area for seven years and played hockey with the head athletic trainer from St. Mary’s.  Drama Queen (D.Q.) was born less than 15 minutes from their campus in Moraga and I think that there is something very cool about a small school beating a big school and doing it with three Australian starters.  Hey ‘Nova…stick that in your land down under!

When I tell you this next pick, you’re gonna say,  “J.R. are you smoking crack?”  For the record, no.  I am not.  I have never smoked crack because as we all know, crack is whack.  I picked Wisconsin to go the Elite Eight.  Swear to God.  Why did I do that?  It’s simple.  I’m a Badger fan.  When you like a team it makes you do weird shit.  Like pick Wisconsin and Marquette to play in the Elite Eight for the East.  Of course, Marquette getting bitch slapped by Washington in the first round F’d up those plans, but I can still hope for Wisconsin.

Wisconsin has to play Cornell tomorrow, so we’ll have to see how that works out for me.  If Wisconsin somehow beats Kentucky, I would like to say, “Hell yeah!  Badgers like a mo fo, yo!!!  Whooo!!!  In yo face suckah dawg.  Take your bluegrass and shove it up your @$$!!!”  If (for some reason) Cornell manages to win, I say, “”Jesus Christ!  %^%$#**&^%$#@#$!!!!!”

Buffalo, NY is hosting West Regional games this weekend.  The last time I checked, Buffalo was nowhere near the West Coast.  I think some people at the NCAA offices are smoking some pretty good bud.  Pass it to the left, yo…

My Midwest bracket is F’d up beyond all recognition as I had Kansas and Georgetown in the Elite Eight.  Nice move dumbass!  My only consolation is that the guy in front of me also had Kansas and Georgetown in the Midwest, and he also picked Villanova and Louisville to play in the Elite Eight out of the South regional.  I dodged a bullet there since, as we mentioned before, Villanova was bounced by St. Mary’s.

Rick Pitino and his Louisville Cardinals also lost, which gives Pitino more time to go nail women on restaurant tables.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about just Google “Rick Pitino sex restaurant.” (but please wait until you’re done reading this).   I’ve always wondered if he took off the white suit jacket when he was boning her.  I guess we will never know.  Once again, back to the tournament…

Tonight was crazy good. The top seed in the whole freakin tournament, Kansas, got schooled by Northern Iowa.  Not only did they lose to a nine seed, but it was a directional school!  If the name of your school has a direction in it you should not be beating the good schools in the country!  The only exception to that rule are schools from states that have directions in the name, i.e.  North Carolina and South Dakota.  Those teams are exempt from the Directional School Rule.  Schools like Central Alabama or Southwest Missouri State, go play in the NIT where you belong.

My point to all this is that even if you’re not a college basketball fan, March Madness does have some good stories and is interesting to watch.  I have to admit that I rarely watch college basketball until tournament time.  This year I did not watch a single minute of a game before Thursday.  I saw clips and highlight on ESPN, but never did I watch a game.

My pick to win the whole thing is Syracuse.  Once again you may want to bring up the whole smoking crack thing and I will once again firmly deny ever having touched the stuff.  Why am I picking Syracuse?  For several reasons.  First off, yes they’ve been up and down this season, but I think they can put together a run and do some damage.  Second, I live in Western New York, just a few hours from Syracuse, so I’m calling home court advantage.  Third, I love the mascot.  Every time I see that orange running around it reminds me of an oompah loompah and reminds me to drink OJ and get my vitamin C!

How do me make the tournament better?  Some people, like my Twitter peep @phoneguy94,  advocate going to 96 teams next year.  That’s just lame because the fact of the matter is that a #1 seed has NEVER lost to a 16 seed and if that’s the case why would we think they could lose to a 24 seed?

No my friends, the answer is simple.  We just create a separate tournament to run in conjunction with March Madness.  We call it March Hotness.  Here’s how it works: Get the hottest chick from every school in the tournament and let them go head-to-head in a wet T-shirt contest.  See where I’m going with this?  Every round we douse them, then vote on who looks the best while wearing a see through t-shirt.

There would obviously have to be some sort of guidelines for entry into the tournament.  For example, if you have a fake rack, your cans need to have been purchased while enrolled in the school you’re representing (or something like that).  I totally think I’m on to something here.  Let me get working on this for 2011.  If you have any thoughts, please let me know…

J.R.

P.S.  The woman in the photo is ESPN talent Erin Andrews.  You’re welcome…