Its not just about the basketball

I love the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Even more than the World Series, and baseball is my first love, making this a huge statement. It doesn’t stop there though. Evan and I discussed on Inter-Dis Material 26 if we were more excited the day before the tourney or Christmas. If I didn’t have to work the morning of the first day I think the tourney might win (I took off the afternoon of the first day and all day for day 2). Then you can go back to when I was little and I would draw my own brackets on graph paper because there was no internet and I couldn’t wait for the newspaper to come the next day.

The games are always rapid fire excitement. The first round there are just so many games a few of them are bound to be close and the upsets are even more shocking (except of course for this year where there was only mild round one excitement). The second round the teams are closer in ability so every one could come down to the end (like they did on Saturday).

Besides the games themselves there is everything that goes with watching it. And that is what I miss most: Watching it with my friends at school and witnessing all of this …

The Announcers –
So much to work with in here. How excited Gus Johnson gets. That Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery are excellent, before 8pm, when its after their bed time. The amazing ability for Billy Packer to depress you during an exciting game. James Brown actually doing some work, instead of presiding over the Fox NFL pregame show.
Correcting them or beating them to something always is a good time. I’m so good sometimes that I should be announcing or even coaching. During the Kansas-Kentucky game I schooled Packer on Kentucky calling a timeout. He called it one possession too early, I questioned him then correctly called it on their next possession.
The announcers being idiots, saying things so dumb that some of their lines are used later on to make fun of them. This applies to all sports, we still call football holders tremendous athletes because some announcer claimed the holder had to be a tremendous athlete.

The Commercials –
There are so many commercial breaks, everyone knows this going in. Then why don’t these companies come up with a greater variety of commercials? They are already bad, so just make more bad ones. At least it would take a little longer to see a single commercial too many times. Once you hit that too many you have to change the channel when it comes on to keep from throwing things at the TV.

Complaining about CBS –
There is always something to complain about, no matter which network:
Scoreboards covering the whole screen. I don’t need the score of the game that I’m watching up at the top, because I already have that score at the bottom! Use that real estate to show the shot clock and how many fouls a player has, because you don’t like to talk about that.
Animated scoreboards and graphics during play. I’m pretty sure the graphics people do it cause they are trying to show off, its really annoying and takes away focus from the game rather than helping the experience. I’m looking in your direction pulsating score bug.
Not switching to the game you want to see! I’m going to have to get DirecTV someday and only watch these other games on it. I’d just get it anyway if they didn’t butcher their HD channels.

Trivia –
I know way too much. So many useless facts from so many years of watching. My friends know way too much as well. Of course we also know just enough to stump ourselves. Who was that that did …? What year was it when …? Didn’t he …? Often Google needs to get involved because we hurt ourselves trying to remember. Does it really matter in the long run if we remember these things? Actually, yes it does, sorry I asked.

Outrageous Claims –
Jumping on board with a team or a player, only to have it blow up in your face. Let’s take this year. During the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, Crieghton’s Nate Funk blew up. I’ve been talking about him all week and picked them to make it to the Sweet 16. If they would have been blown out in the first game I’d never hear the end of it. It’s even worse when you make this kind of statement in a first round game about a team you’ve never seen before. That’s never a good move. You are now, at least in the mind of your cowatchers, one with that team. When this team or player inevitably goes down, and they wind up falling hard, you are done for. You will be reminded of this the rest of your tournament, possibly the next few months depending on how badly things fell apart. As long as I’m not the one receiving the punishment for one of these statements, then its my favorite part.

The #1 thing I miss about college? Watching sports with my friends. This is the biggest sports weekend of the year. Thus, the first weekend of the tourney is the #1 thing I miss from college.