We’re nearing the end of day one of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and it already is a raging success, if only because Kentucky has been ousted.
Never mind that this latest Kentucky tournament choke totally screws my two brackets. It is rewarding to see John Calipari’s one-and-done methodology, in which he eagerly allows his program to serve as a one-season incubator for aspiring NBA draft picks, once again come up short in the tournament.
This year, the Mildcats were sent packing by Oakland, the Michigan school you probably never had on your hoops radar previously, unlike, say, Michigan State.
This particular tournament dispatching of the Kentucky one-year all-stars was accomplished on the back of guard Jack Gohlke’s 32 points as he rained 3-pointers on the guys in blue. Gohlke honed his craft in five years at Division II Hillsdale before transferring to Oakland for his final season of eligibility.
Gohlke is not destined to be a lottery pick in the NBA draft, but he made fans of the old days of college basketball feel like they had hit the lottery with the humbling of Calipari’s group of prima donnas.
And that’s why we still watch the NCAA tournament, despite all its failings and foibles.
We watch despite the fact that earlier today we were treated to the heartwarming story of the Illinois star player, Terrence Shannon Jr., able to play only because he and his posse got a court order demanding Illinois drop its suspension of him, owing to a rape charge he faces in Kansas.
The school, ruled the judge, had violated Shannon’s civil rights with the suspension. Those rights included the opportunity to be an NBA lottery draft pick and poach money from the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) money machine.
That judge’s last name, in a bit of delicious irony, is Lawless.
Shannon may or may not be guilty of the rape. But a school losing the power to suspend players who are under such active judicial scrutiny is the sort of absurd justice now visited upon this country by activist judges.
I’m sure the pompous NCAA types bringing Shannon to postseason media functions were sure to refer to him as a student-athlete, despite the fact his whole court case rested on him being a basketball player, not an aspiring sociologist, with his reported major in sociology.
Generally speaking, during the course of today’s Day One viewing, I saw some bad behavior from assorted teams and players – thuggish moments that had the officials beating a path to courtside tables to consult video replays to decide whether or not to hand out flagrant fouls. Frequently, they did.
I filled out two NCAA brackets this year, just for fun, and already they are candidates for the circular file.
My laughably incorrect theme this year was that the SEC, with its eight teams in the field, was poised to make the sort of national noise usually reserved for the conference’s football programs.
Instead, Michigan State sent Mississippi State packing, South Carolina was bounced by Oregon and, of course, Kentucky was shown the door by Oakland.
Tennessee, the only other SEC team in action Thursday, is up huge on St. Peter’s at the half as I write this, so presumably the Volunteers will survive.
The other four SEC teams – Alabama, Auburn, Florida and Texas A&M — play Friday. I’m expecting all four to win then. But I also expected Kentucky Mississippi State and South Carolina to win today, too.
Doesn’t matter, though, because Kentucky is gone and I’m one happy camper.
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