READY FOR THE SWEET 16

This year I discovered the secret to March Madness:  Fill Out A Bracket.  Simply go online and plug and chug your tournament picks.  Gone are the days of penciling in your picks for the office pool with Bob the Accountant whipping out his slide rule to make the tabulations.  HERE are the days of ESPN.com where 4 million folks all compete with one another with the near mathematical impossibility of picking all the winners. 

The great thing is it’s not even a competition.  The more picks you get wrong, the greater the March Madness.

Take this year’s Sweet 16 (for the uninitiated-  the 16 teams that remain after the main pool of 64).  I picked only 6 of the 16 teams.  Pitiful, right?  No!  This is the whole point.  The more you suck, the better.  And the more random the upset you predict, the more brilliant your reputation becomes.  Suddenly you are an intuitive sage who knew Florida State (seeded 10^th out of 16), Virginia Commonwealth (11) and Richmond (12) would be joining Kansas as the 4 teams remaining in the Southwest region.

In the SE Regional, I didn’t pick Butler to advance, yet their controversial last second win over #1 seed Pitt was the biggest jump-off-the-sofa moment of the tourney. After all, it was a rare bracket that didn’t have Pitt in its Final Four. It was Pitt aka Goliath had guys who looked like professional wrestlers and/or hitmen, and Butler’s tallest player might have been 6’4”*. Butler’s best player from last year’s national runner up team is long gone & playing for the Utah Jazz. No one expected more than a rebuilding year for their 34y old coach who looks 24.  Although their Sweet 16 game against Wisconsin might elicit snoozes, how great would it be to see Butler back in the Elite Eight against Florida or BYU.

Speaking of BYU, if you haven’t seen Jimmer Fredette catch and shoot the ball, the kid actually levitates.  Can’t wait to see him in the NBA as he redefines the word sharpshooter.  I expect him to start draining shots consistently from halfcourt.  He may look about 5’8” out there on the court, but as Doug Flutie, Drew Breese and John Stockton can all attest, more inches are not mandatory for success in professional sports.

Other Blips on the Sweet 16 Radar: 

• Hopefully Ohio State got their insane 3 Pt shot % out of their system. 
• Hopefully Duke and UNC (the greatest rivalry in all of college sports) will meet in the Final Four.
• Maybe even San Diego State will swagger into the Elite Eight (I doubt it guys, Huskies devour Aztecs, but hey, go for it). 
• Will Virginia Commonwealth actually upset Kansas if they can get through Florida State without multiple player hospitalizations from that backbreaking Seminole Defense?

These are but a mere smattering of larger universal questions of the Basketball Gods that will be answered by this week’s 12 games, starting TH with UConn/SDSU in Anaheim.

Onward.

--Reported by SK

*Butler’s tallest player is the highly skilled Matt Howard at 6’8”, I was just making a dramatic point about the overmatched Butler Bulldogs.

Musing on the Excitement of Day 1 of March Madness

I was about to email someone who loves the NCAA Tournament as much as I do (my life coach Steve Chandler), then realized that my new blog here is a great place to plop down my reflections.

I was 11-5 today in my picks.  It ranked me 2,643,235th on ESPN.com.  Maybe after tomorrow I can move up to 1,976,987th place for that dream vacation they're offering.

As for my 5 losers, I picked:

Princeton over Kentucky.  Oops.  Great shot off the glass last second by Kentucky wins it. It was perfectly defended by Princeton but a perfect shot is a perfect shot. That's part of what makes this game great -- no matter how well defended, there is always possible victory over the resistance (aka defender in your face with very long arms).

Penn State over Temple.  Temple wins with a Kobe Bryant style duck and pop shot.  This was after a HUGE 3-pointer by PSU from well past NBA depth.  In my opinion there will be no prettier shot in this tourny than this 3-pointer -- arc, depth and confidence...  Unfortunately for my bracket, no matter how impressive and thunderous this shot was, I still lost.

Louisville over Morehead State.  Who would guessed Morehead State to be so talented?  They Dredlock Dunked all over Rick Pitino's soldiers.  And to think some authority figures in the sports world had Louisville going to the Final Four...

Old Dominion over Butler.  I should have known that Butler would continue its momentum that took it to last year's championship game against Duke.  No domination by the Dominion.

Utah State over Kansas State.  Close but no cigar.  KSU's Jacob Pullen, man with the best beard in college basketball, was sick.  Apparently not sick enough to lose.

My 2 upset winners:

Kudos to Richmond for their victory over Vanderbuilt.  One look at the Vandy bench in the last 2 minutes showed that they were destined for a loss.  Those guys were sleepy and not fired up.

Well done by Gonzaga for their uptempo and athletic win over St. Johns.  Gonzaga is carrying some great momentum. Watch out BYU.  That'll be a great game on Saturday.

Out of 16 games today there were 6 games that came down to the last shot and 3 upsets.  That's a helluva day.  I'm ready for Day 2.

--Reported by SK

FLYPOET

Welcome to my blog!  Thank You for checking out this new expression of mine.

My first entry is on the Flypoet event I attended in Inglewood, CA this week.  This monthly event has poets, some comedy and usually at least one live music act.

I am impressed with the production and the Flypoet founder John Hensley.  To put on an event like this that lasts on a monthly basis for several years is an impressive feat.  Pure poetry or spoken word by itself unfortunately does not appeal to the masses.  What John has created is an actual scene, and with enough variety and enough talent to attract the folks willing to invest $15 & the $8 valet. 

John is a white dude catering to a mostly black audience.  He fit right in which impressed me, as I am someone who keeps my afrocentricity more private.

A VIP booth would have been $80 which I thought was outlandish, but again, John has created a scene where people want to be.  It was unfortunate that some of these booths were vacant as the show started, but because they were prepaid, they were not accessible & a number of guests were relegated to standing room only.

The most annoying thing about the show for me were the waitresses periodically passing thru.  They obscured my view of the stage and their whispered conversations did not add to my experience of the poetry.  The only solution I could think of were to have mute dwarf waitresses, but I’m not sure how that would go over.

The opening performer did some comedy, sang and rapped.  Her rapping was the best part.  Her humor was mostly good but unfortunately inappropriate when she was doing her impersonation of Latino kids sharing Black History Month which happened at her daughter’s school.

The 2^nd performer was Steve Connell.  This guy got on stage and goofed around with the audience & musicians for the first 5-10 minutes.  He was the worst dressed guy in the place with his skanky flannel.  He was also hilarious & has his own one-man show.  He was the only white performer this evening.

Watching him goof around gave me no idea he would unleash explosive and inspiring poetry with expression that was simply all-out, channeled and executed with exquisite skill. Steve completely rocked the house.

Next was Ahmad, a musician who had the single ‘Back in the Day’ sell over 500,000 copies.  As I was a first time Flypoet attendee, I did not understand he was a music only act, so my poetry compadre Marie and I were waiting for him to do some straight up poetry.

Ahmad’s songs were catchy but his stage performance was a little sketchy and uneven in my eyes.  He seemed to have some kind of discomfort or shadow over him.  His final song was a cover of Florence and the Machine which was an interesting choice given the audience.  He didn’t acknowledge its source which Marie and I found to be unprofessional.

The next poet, Paul Mabon, was half comedy, and I perceived him to be the most easygoing performer of the evening.  He had Sinbad type moments as a big jovial presence onstage.

He executed the most vulnerable poem of the evening about a pastor committing child abuse with a presentation that made it seem like it was his own experience.  The crowd didn’t seem to know what to do with the subject matter as nervous chatter popped up here and there.

Mabon’s poetry was clearly not at the level of Connell or the final performer, Sekou the Misfit, but as the happiest and calmest stage presence he was the most memorable to me.  He wasn’t trying to impress anyone, he was just comfortably and naturally up there doing his thing. 

His closing interactive piece of “You Ain’t Got No Man” had the crowd rollicking more than any other piece of the night, as he listed myriad ways to spot single women.

Sekou the Misfit closed the evening.  He was advertised as “one of the most gifted and accomplished spoken word artists in the world”.  After seeing him perform, I do understand this titling.

Marie and I nicknamed him “The Narcissist”.  His poetry and intricate and incredible. This guy is a pro.

At the same time it was tough to not experience him as far away if not slightly ‘off’. He seemed extremely proud of himself.

I experienced his poems as deeply ingrained in Victim Ideology. Yes they impressed but to me they seemed to be saying what a victim he was to love, sex & life, and how it’s possible to perceive it that way.

I have conflicting thoughts and feelings about this cat.  He certainly delivers with almost a vengeance.  He’s fluid, his poems are long, interesting and even captivating at times with his visual language.

Yet when said and done it was a momentary experience.  There was not much to carry forward other than being impressed with what he did onstage.  This is not a guy I would want to hang out with.

--Reported by Super Kev