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Some may moan about upsets in the NCAA tournament. How could No. 1 seed Gonzaga lose to No. 9 seed Wichita State? Some may groan about upsets in the NCAA tournament. How could No. 4 seed Saint Louis lose to No. 14 Oregon?
Reason enough to cheer for Miami? Not for Illini fans.
Not me. Well, maybe a little. Having attended the University of Missouri once upon a time, I was hoping the school’s basketball team might actually win a game in the tournament. No such luck. With the Tigers eliminated, I then switched allegiances to the aforemention Saint Louis Billikens because of having grown up in that city. The Billikens did win a game in the tournament but lost Saturday (March 23).
Meaning it really doesn’t matter who wins (although as a Mizzou alum, it would be nice if Kansas didn’t).
The best way to stay detatched during this March Madness (madness in part because it ends in April) is to avoid entering any bracket contests. By being a bystander — or sitter — to contests of supreme skill or blind luck, you can root for any team that you desire. Not only that, you can root for any team at any time.
Reason enough to cheer for Indiana? Quite possibly.
Let’s say for the sake of this exercise that you were rooting for Marquette for whatever reason. The nwe pope. The old Marquette teams of decades ago. Whatever. Then you had Butler go up on the Warriors. You could change sides and be behind the Bulldogs. And then when the game came down to a last shot by Butler that could have won the game, you could root for whichever team you wanted. You could even wait for the shot to miss before you swore any allegiance.
There is something to be said for simply emjoying a game without having anything riding on it. Too often people have found themselves either rooting for a team they would rather not (did someone mention Kansas?) or rooting for a team they would rather not (let’s use Louisville as an example).
By not having a vested interest, you can — as has been pointed out already — root for any team. Of course, by not entering an office pool or some other form of showing your basketball genius, you do not receive any reward for your brilliance. Then again, you don’t suffer any humiliation when the person winning the grand prize did so based on uniform color, religious affiliation of universities, mascot names or some other non-perforamnce-related criteria.
With all that said, we come to the games for Sunday (March 25). Among them is Illinois vs. Miami (Fla.). I live in Illinois and have lived in Miami. I know people who have attended each school. My maternal grandfather went to Illinois. So what do I do when it comes to rooting regarding that contest?
All I really care about is that it’s a good game. And my definition of a good game is one that is competitive and comes down to the last minute or so. I’m not a big fan of lopsided results — unless it’s for a team that I might be rooting for. And even then, I prefer close contests to blowouts — provided that the team I might be rooting for does prevail.
Here we go with some video (non-gratuitous because the folks at elliottharris.com find very little — if anything — that falls into the gratuitous category):
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