NEW YORK, NY – A man with a single malt 12 year-old scotch in his hand sits with his dog by his side and watches coverage of March Madness on CBS just like back in the day. Oh, there’s games on TBS and TNT, too? TruTV, what the fuh is that? All games televised. What a stroke of genius but where was this idea when I had a couple of hundred riding on the George Washington Colonials before the term mid-major became cliché and had to watch for scores at the bottom or top of the screen? He has entered the March Madness Twilight Zone, where the man has learned some new things.
The Coastal Carolina school mascot is the Chanticleer. Although they sound like an expensive light fixture, at first I thought they were mushrooms only to realize the fungi are called chanterelles. Not wanting to wait until game time where the plain eye could see the crazy looking rooster on team merchandise, the magic of Wikipedia also offered the animal’s mention in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and was Rutgers mascot before thankfully changing to the Scarlet Knights.
The American versus Wisconsin match-up reminded me of a stroll with my daughter a very long time ago in Riverdale as we passed the YM-YWHA. Never did I think I’d see the likes of all those white kids playing basketball at the same time and for the game to be televised, no less.
During the studio show, Kenny Smith is a cool New Yorker, Clark Kellogg is intelligent, Charles Barkley is a blowhard dope, and I still don’t know what the he!! Ernie Johnson is.
I will stay up until 1:30 a.m. to watch Bump-On-A-Log State play the #1 or #2 seeded Name Brand University without having a bet on the game. Without having a bracket entered in a pool. Without being in a point spread “capture” pool. Hand me a razor please or better still, maybe I can catch a puck off the head a couple of a dozen times like this guy. Insert Lent Is Painful photo here.
Mercer College, not to be confused with my alma mater Mercy College, is in Georgia and not New Jersey as I originally thought. One would think as a private institution the school would have a little more money to spend on a school logo so it didn’t look like my kid’s high school emblem. Go Mercer?
While tuning in to the tournament on Thursday, the score banner read 2rd. Second Round?!? Huh, I missed the first round? Seems as though the money-lovin’, pimp-stickin’, slave masters of the NCAA are calling the eight-team, four game play-in contests the first round. Puh-leez. Nice try.
Cliff Ellis has resurfaced coaching Coastal Carolina. The last I remember this old fogey was when he was guiding Clemson and later Auburn to NIT victories which were met with reward hand over fi$t from my bookie, Patty and his sour secretary, Gerry. Mr. Ellis, if I could only buy you a drink. You gave Virginia a good sweat, pal.
Come back tomorrow for a man that can make you sweat, DJ Eberle.
