I've spent the majority of the last 13 hours watching or listening to basketball.. a sport I don't even like. I've also spent 15 of those 13 hours drinking. So, I have some questions.

1) How is it that without any knowledge of this game whatsoever.. without watching a single game this season, I can predict with 75% accuracy the winners of each day 1 game... without even paying attention to which team is favored?

2) Foul trouble: This seems absolutely retarded to me. I don't want somebody to get pulled from the game for having too many fouls, so I pull him out myself. WTF? If I leave him in, maybe he doesn't foul 1 or 2 or 3 more times and gets to play the whole game. If I pull him, he definitely doesn't get to play until I put him back in. This is dumb. Coaches should stop pulling players who have X number of fouls by Y point in the game. Am I right here? (yes)

3) There definitely was at least one more question which I wanted to pose to you all, but that was about halfway through the Gonzaga rout of the gay pirates (which was totally predictable, BTW) and I can no longer remember what it was. If one of you can guess what it was, please answer it for me.

Thanks,

Sam

I just thought of another question, but this wasn't question number three, so if any of you figured out what number three was, please go ahead and answer it.

3(alt): Oh fluff, I already forgot. Never mind.

Thoughts on SAM's thoughts

This is why they call it March Madness, it marches you into madness.

1. Because it's called making money. They could have saved all the time and trouble by reducing the tournament roster to 8 teams, but having so many weak teams in means more TV time means more revenue.

2. Time to rest. Time to reflect on game play. Time to refocus. Ability over replacement, if fouled out means you lose him the rest of the game. Refs changes how they ref each game during different times of the game, you save your player for time that is more favourable for him to play in. Physical style of play rarely gets called for fouls later in the game. Also adds development time for your replacement players, because most of the time those are not the guys graduating or going to the NBA, they will be here next year, so you need to develop them anyways.

3. SLAM DUNK IS THE BEST BASKETBALL MANGA.

I don't care for bball either.
The game doesn't seem to matter until the last 5 minutes,so the games should really only be 6 minutes long.
That gives the teams a minute to goof around d,then play.

I don't know where Gonzaga is, I just like saying Gonzaga.

I went to my buddies house a couple days ago and found him watching an all male orgy. I asked him why he was watching gay porn and he replied "I'm not, it's basketball".

I just remembered my other question.. And this one I really don't understand..

The "play-in" games for the tournament. How can two of these games be for an 11 seed. If two teams are good enough to be considered tied for 11th, then isn't the loser of that game being denied a spot in the tournament when there are 5 teams already in which weren't as good? (12th through 16th seeds?)

TV revenue

This is a gloriously ignorant and simplistic summation. Many of the lower seeds are automatic bids. Winning your conference tourny is an automatic bid, even if your conference is weak as fluff. Back in he day, the only way to get into the tourny was to win your conference.

The 11 seeds are usually bubble teams. Those that are the last 4 in etc. It gives teams that were "on the bubble for getting in" based on RPI and other fluff a chance at proving their way in. Even though they didnt get an automatic bid by winning their conference, they are usually better than the teams that win low level conferences.

GO DUCKS!!!

<Oregonian

To truly make this exciting, they should make it a year long tournament involving all teams, like the FA Cup.

Higher conference teams don't have to participate in the first few rounds.

Imagine you are a 5 man team from a community college that doesn't even have any athletic department, and some how, they went from Round 1 all the way to March Madness, and into the Finals.

Nobody knows and it makes zero sense to every single person alive, but do remember officially this is an amateur league so it isn't like we're seeing the best of the product or even a good tournament.

Nobody knows and it makes zero sense to every single person alive, but do remember officially this is an amateur league so it isn't like we're seeing the best of the product or even a good tournament.

This implies there are 20 teams who won their conference but weren't good enough to get an 11 seed or better.

It implies such only if reading and comprehension are not your thing.

He clearly states "Many" not "All" of the lower seed teams.

Also stated that now winning your conference is no longer the only way to get in, so several of those lower level seeds could also have been granted at-large bids.

The answer to why do they play-in games is obvious: $$$. Expanding the tournament increases tv time and this revenue. You could argue that it also expands interest in it.

always disliked March for this reason

pre-empting good shows for BB ... ugh



oh wait, there are hardly any good shows on TV anyway ;)