It finally hit me — after staring at my tournament bracket for the better part of 27 hours (I’m not kidding, it’s possible I’ve relapsed into a level of insomnia I blissfully experienced my junior year of college) it occurred to me that it makes absolutely zero difference how much I may think I know about college basketball, I will not correctly predict the tournament’s outcome by analytical means.
I’ve tried this method of number crunching, trend spotting and egotistical massaging in attempting to predict the actual Final Four] teams, the national title match-up and the lone school left standing for the last 16 years — I’ve been right once, 1989. Rumeal Robinson, sir, I owe you one.
The way percentages work out, going 1-for-16 is, for the lack of a better word, dreadful. This equates to being successful 6.25 percent of the time. If I were a card-carrying member of the PGA Tour, winning 1 out of every 16 tournaments would earn me an ungodly amount of money and a fistful of Ryder Cup points, not to mention a bevy of endorsement deals. I’m sorry (on so many levels) to report to you that I am not a professional golfer. Time to let go of that dream and time to consider a new strategy. Time to up the percentage; it’s about time to enjoy what I see in the mirror.
Let’s ignore what we know to be true about the number one seeds. Kentucky hasn’t lost since December. Arizona somehow put together a 32-point swing on Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse. Texas goes 10 players deep and is led by the top point guard in the nation. Oklahoma’s defense is more menacing than Brando charging toward a fully loaded desert tray. Facts are useless, trends are pointless, and a wise man once said statistics are like a drunken man’s light post.
Stay with me if you like, but consider yourself forewarned — we’re pulling out the abstract here.
The Final Four will be held in New Orleans. I last stepped foot in that city fraught with guilty pleasures and migraine-inducing concoctions in October 1995. My travails in New Orleans are inconsequential (and best left untold) to this exercise. We’ll move on.
That same month Tom Glavine was named World Series MVP after his Atlanta Braves took down the Cleveland Indians in six games for what would be their only major league trophy in six attempts in the decade of the ’90s. Glavine did not attend college, so we can’t go with his alma mater.
The ’95 Series most outstanding player hails from Concord, Massachusetts, a little more than two and a half hours by car from Albany, New York — site of this year’s East Regional. Somehow there are three schools all located 310 miles away from Albany — Syracuse, St. Joseph’s, and Pennsylvania.
The Ivy Leaguers get the boot right away, the conference has never produced an NCAA men’s basketball champion. Bill Bradley and Princeton came close in 1965, but third place isn’t first and I generally have an inferiority complex about Ivy League grads.
The Atlantic-10 has given us a winner, although it was LaSalle and that was nearly 50 years ago in 1954. St. Joe’s, you’re still alive, for now.
Teams currently comprising the Big East have captured a total of eight national titles. Syracuse moves to the top. They carry a three seed, and the last time I correctly predicted the Final Four, the national title match-up AND the eventual champion was 1989 — when Michigan won as a three seed.
St. Joe’s, you have been dismissed. Syracuse, I unofficially crown you champions of the 2003 NCAA tournament.
All right, this is ridiculous. I’ve got to get some sleep.
