a study of the insanity that takes place during the month of march

what is it that the american people find so compelling about march madness? is it the endless shots of coach k glowering on the sidelines? the occaisional bob knight moment of danger? joakim noah acting a fool?

i would say that it's none of those three things. i would say, and this is pretty obvious to me, that the appeal of it lies in george mason, gonzaga, and vilanova. the zags first bust onto the scene with a floppy haired, floppy dicked rebel named daniel dickau. vilanova shocked the world by shooting 79%(!) in the title game against the hoyas. george mason got to the final four before it ran into joakim "i am the most annoying college player ever because i have a stupid haircut and run around the court looking like a moron but manage to be effective" noah and the FLA gators. (p.s. to that sentence--who would have figured that florida would be the first ever school to hold both the football and basketball titles simultaneously?)

all three of those teams are/were ridiculous underdogs because not only of the fact that they're tiny schools but also because they're a bunch of whiteys (i mainly mean gonzaga here) scrambling around the court shooting and passing and setting picks. that could be the reason why gonzaga is perennial underdogs despite making the tourney 9 of the last 9 years and even being pretty highly ranked in the days of the 'stache. at this point, don't even mention them as underdogs--they're perennial contenders who make the tourney every year and start a bunch of honkeys. whiteness shouldn't=scrappy underdogs.

the magic behind the madness is the possibility that one team, preferably from a mid-major, will have some sort of magical 3-draining run that takes them into the tasty 16 and beyond. basically cbs lives for the shots of reserves leaping around and locking arms and crucifying each other while their team hangs with a big dog. the tourney is the ultimate time for the size of the dog in the fight vs. size of fight in the dog theory to be put to the test. time and again we see a small scrappy team with some outside shooting touch hang around with the dukies or UNC or uconn, eventually snapping their back with a well placed run in the last 5 minutes of the 2nd half. the biggie makes a desperation comeback, one that always seems to fall a little short.

that's the magic--any team can beat anyone else. so sue me if that's the most obvious thing in the world.

the tourney is kind of like the american dream that way; work hard enough and you just might, just maybe might sneak into the promised land. find yourself dancing on a court that says final four in the center, the big scary black people trudging off like "you're on me like a white shadow."