I published this piece in March, during the NCAA college basketball tournament, before North Carolina was crowned champions and millions of Americans said goodbye to money they had wagered on the outcome. I just came upon it and thought it worth sharing.
If lots of parts fit right, I could finish as high as 466th in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament pool that I am entered in, populated primarily by employees of a company I have not worked for in many years. That's how those pools seem to go; they have a life of their own, long after the employees have "left."
Or in my case, "were laid off", along with half of the company when it was suspended from government contracting by the Small Business Administration. And no, I was not in the part of the company that actually was -- falsely, as it turns out -- accused of having done something upsetting to the SBA.
But I digress.
So yes, I still only have nine of the "sweet sixteen" as it stands now, and although I only have four possible wins for the round of eight, I have three of the round of four, and both finalists, still alive. That's where I could do something remarkable and not lose as badly as usual.
None of the above, however, is good for the NCAA. That's because, while the NCAA is not exactly proud of the fact that betting on the men's tournament is as rampant as it is, and that most people associate "March Madness" with betting and pools and having their brackets tank, it does provide what should be a huge level of interest in the games themselves.
It's about basketball, after all, isn't it?
Well, no, it is not. I have a lottery subscription for one of the national multi-state lotteries out there, a cheap whim that some day I might win enough millions to live exactly as I live now, and exactly where I live now, only with a bigger bank account. Oh, yeah, and not having to work until I'm seventy and probably beyond, as is the case now.
But I don't watch the lottery drawing. There is nothing that is so divine and mind-blowing about the drawing of lottery numbers that I can't just read the email with the numbers the next morning.
And such it is with the NCAA men's basketball tournament. I have watched exactly none of it, and plan to watch exactly none of it. That's not because I'm not a sports fan; I am an excessively passionate sports fan, from baseball to football to golf and a more-than-occasional hockey game when my team is on TV.
I watch none of it for the same reason I would not watch a Nashville vs. Calgary hockey game, or a Diamondbacks-Rockies baseball game. I don't care about the teams involved, you see. It's just a bunch of guys playing basketball, and I'm sure I would have better things to do with that time. Read a book. Pray. Talk to my wife. Sleep. Watch something else on TV.
Let's face it, in this era when the best college basketball teams are lucky to keep their star players a year or two before they try to go professional, the quality of the basketball being played is unwatchable. The players have little loyalty to their teams, and are out there primarily to be seen by pro scouts who already know what they can and can't do. A system like at Duke, which is actually a team system, that's a different story. But they're a rarity and, by the way, Coach K's crew is already out of the tournament.
I am an unabashed fan of the University of North Carolina, whose medical school I attended in an earlier time. And I do hope they win the tournament, even though it would kill my bracket. But I can't watch the games, knowing that the players care less about the school than I, who never played basketball for UNC except in my dreams (yes, in actual dreams), do.
The graduation rate of most top schools' basketball players is sickening. I remember reading, many years ago, of course, a list of those rates by school, before jumping early to the pros was much of a thing. UNC was actually pretty good, well over 50% of its players getting a degree. I think it might have been Oklahoma State or Memphis that was at 7%. As I recall, somehow that wasn't a scandal. Ew.
So no, I'm not interested in watching the games, or seeing the sponsors' ads, which I won't, as I won't be watching the games. I won't be seeing the selfish style of basketball that blasts forth when the spotlight is on selfish players.
But I did do the pool. That, at least, is interesting.
Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
