Pay No Attention to the Game Behind the Curtain

Just a quick note: When I talked earlier about the aesthetic superiority of college basketball, I wasn’t thinking of last night’s Memphis-UCLA game. Ye gods, what an ugly display. That set basketball back so far they should’ve replaced the rims with peach baskets at halftime. I think Memphis coach/ huckster John Calipari said it best:… Continue reading Pay No Attention to the Game Behind the Curtain

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I’m a Basketball Fan, That’s Why I Don’t Like the NBA

Matt Yglesias has a fairly silly article denouncing the NCAA as a “celebration of mediocrity.” Jason Zengerle takes issue with this, and provides a nice explanation of why college basketball is superior to the NBA on emotional grounds (and let me just note how happy I am to see our leading political magazines writing about… Continue reading I’m a Basketball Fan, That’s Why I Don’t Like the NBA

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Late Start Live-Blogging

I passed on the first set of games in favor of playing some basketball with the usual lunchtime crowd, but made it home in time to see Bucknell finish up winning against Arkansas, and Northwestern State hit a wild three at the buzzer to beat Iowa. What state is that? That’d be Louisiana. Now you… Continue reading Late Start Live-Blogging

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End of an Era

So, the big question in college basketball yesterday, “Can Syracuse sustain their Big East Tournament run through the NCAA’s?” was answered with a resounding “No.” They made a decent run at it, but Gerry McNamara didn’t have any legs left, and went without a field goal for the first time in his career. Terrence Roberts… Continue reading End of an Era

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More NCAA Live-Blogging

All right, we’re back from our walk, and Emmy is very proud of the way she taunted the big scary German Shepherd up the road, so it’s back to the games. 5:53 Marquette’s three-point ace Steve Novak misses an open shot with eight seconds to play, and it’s all over but the intentional fouling and… Continue reading More NCAA Live-Blogging

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The Essence of March

I’d be required to turn in my fan card if I didn’t at least mention Syracuse winning the Big East Championship in one of the more improbable runs I’ve ever seen (the AP story is tarted up with ESPN graphics here). They looked dead heading into the tournament– having lost by 39 to lowly DePaul… Continue reading The Essence of March

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