March sports report

Can Anyone Here Play This Game? 
The primary feature of this season in college basketball has been the inconsistency of the top teams.  In the regular season, and in the top conference postseason tournaments, the top-seeded teams have proven the ability to lose unexpectedly.  Fine, but all this is but the prelude to the main event--the NCAA tournament.

The first two rounds of the tournament (I don't count the preliminary "First Four" as a round) had a large number of upset results.  This is not truly surprising, as almost every top team runs across one or two tough challenges:  the test of the potential championship team is the ability to pull those games out.  What does seem different to me this year is the fact of multiple  games in which highly-ranked teams were blown out by lower-ranked ones.  We start with #1-ranked Virginia's 20-point loss to a number #16 seed, UMBC; also in the first round, #4 Arizona losing to #13 Buffalo by 21.  In the second round, #2 North Carolina lost by 21 to #7 Texas Tech and #4 Auburn lost to #5 Clemson by 33.  Parity is when the mid-majors , weaker teams in the big conferences, or champions of lower-rated leagues keep it close against the big boys (an example being #11 Syracuse throwing a nasty zone and defeating #3 Michigan State).  These blowout losses by high-rated teams reflect lack of preparation, or of motivation.  Which is hard to understand if these players and coaches are really focused on the here and now, and not their NBA futures.

I will generalize and say that most of the teams left are ones that have flawed regular seasons but come in to the tourney with a hot streak. The one exception is Villanova, which looks like a potential champion, with both an excellent regular season and strong performances in the first two rounds.  The left side of the bracket is pretty well decimated, with Kentucky and Michigan coming in hot and looking like favorites to make the Final Four, being also the highest-seeded survivors in their regions (UK at #5 and MU at #3).  The fourth spot will likely be decided by a final-eight showdown between Duke and Kansas: #1 and #2 seeds, each packed with talent and 7 regular-season losses--a lot for teams seeded #1 and #2.

The most interesting game of this third round will be the matchup of #11 Loyola-Chicago and #7 Nevada:  the first team won with last-second baskets in both rounds, while Nevada came from 22 points down to win its last game.  There's a lot more I could say about it, like how the Ramblers of Loyola won the first NCAA championship I can remember in my life and haven't been close since then, but I see it as a prelim to the regional final, where I would expect that game's winner then to lose to Kentucky. The Wildcats, my perennial fave which I will defend against all derision or snark, are an extreme Caliparian team (or I would call them "callipygian", which means with a big tail end), starting five freshmen, and their late-season run has changed this team's theme from "they should come back" to potential Final Four and raising three or four to potential "one and done" status.  They find themselves unexpectedly favored after seeds 1-4 in their region all lost in the first two rounds.

I have heard the NBA is reconsidering the "one and done" rule.  I would suggest they treat the colleges like the developmental league they are and agree to subsidize certain draftable freshman players to stay on for one or two additional seasons; if they actually do change it, more likely they'll go in the other direction and reinstate straight-to-pro high schoolers.  I hope not; LeBron James and Moses Malone notwithstanding, it's not in the interest of the players affected, the NBA teams themselves (who will pay more for less), or, more obviously, the health of the college game.

Tearing Myself from "March Madness"...
to normal martial/Martian sports activity.  (Speaking of which, I dream of a pro volleyball game played in a low-gravity Mars arena--I think it will happen before 2100.) 

The NBA heads toward a brief spasm of relevant regular season games early next month when the wild and tight battle for seeding positions (or just making the playoffs, in the Western Conference) will climax.  There may also be a one-downsmanship competition for the worst record (and best chances at a very early first-round draft pick), though that will likely be determined a week or more before the season's end, after which the best losers will simply have to continue to lose. At the top of the house, the Houston Rockets, with their supreme backout duo of James Harden and Chris Paul, have emerged as the most likely challenger to the Golden State Warriors' dominance, but either or both could be susceptible to a surprise playoff loss in earlier rounds against dangerous teams like San Antonio, Oklahoma City, or Portland.

Baseball's new season is shaping up as a few teams with outsized talent (Dodgers, Cubs, Astros, Indians, and the Yankees) and a lot of teams at various stages of rebuilding.  My Reds seem to be about halfway through a six-year program to dive deep and slowly resurface.   The game is subtly changing, with more strikeout pitchers, more emphasis on relievers and on home runs--to me, a little less intricate and fascinating, but, you know, "chicks dig the long flies".  Or so it is said.  The Yanks' signing of Giancarlo Stanton to make a 1-2 power combo with Aaron Judge feels scarily familiar with the shadow of previous Bronx dynasties, and with the Yanks now boasting a true ace now in Luis Severino, I feel threatened.

Chelsea Rule is not all OK this year, and I'm afraid that yet another top coach has about played out his string.  The 3-0 defeat at Barcelona--the best club team in the world-- is not shameful, but the team has underperformed for Antonio Conte this year.   With that game having eliminated the Blues from the Champions League, they are now down to one possible trophy, having reached the semifinal of the F.A. Cup, and they have a challenging path to finish in the top four and remain qualified for the Champions league next year.   At least Manchester City--far and away the best English team this year--was recently eliminated from the FA by Wigan, so they won't win everything.  They may reach the heights of a Champions League final, if they get a favorable draw in the next rounds; they are that good. This next round, they are matched against Liverpool, the team that gave them their only Premier League loss so far this season, but I'm not expecting this team to be their nemesis.