Great Tournament So Far

My bracket? Slightly-above-mediocre as usual… but the tournament has been amazing so far. So many great, close games. It’s hard, even as someone who doesn’t live and die college basketball, not to be excited about it.

The OSU game? Incredible! The Maryland/Butler game? Awesome! The IU/UCLA game? A perfect match for those two programs: a game that could’ve gone either way in the waning seconds.

I could go on.

Frankly, given the way Alabama was playing at the end of the season, we don’t belong on the court with any of the teams that made it out of the first round (as was borne out by our awful 1st round NIT performance). Such is life. Maybe next year. (What I’d really prefer, though, is to get back to talking about football next year)

The amazing thing, to me, is the sheer number of people who turn into giant dickbags when their team wins (and even bigger ones when they lose).

It’s an attitude I’ve never really understood. I can understand, to a degree, being a douche when your team loses. You feel bad, your pride is hurt, you want to make yourself feel better by trying to take something away from the winners. (More accurately, the fans of the winning team) But when you win? Really, what’s the point?

To quote the best college football coach to prowl a sideline: “Son, next time you get into the end-zone, try to act like you’ve been there before, okay?”

Judging by the way some people act after their respective teams win, they’ve never won anything before in their lives. And I don’t mean the “Oh, we’ve been talking trash back and forth for a week leading up to the game, so I’m going to rub your nose in it now for a while” stuff… that’s (usually) all in good fun and if you’re going to participate in trash talking you’re going to have to suffer the consequences… but seriously… what’s so hard about just saying “That was a good game and I’m happy we won?”

Apparently that’s pretty tough. (Either that or I just know quite a few completely classless people) Instead, during this tournament alone, I’ve gotten to see comments like these, all from fans of the winning team:

• Well, it should’ve been by more if we were playing well!
• Whatever, you guys didn’t deserve to even be there in the first place!
• We got screwed by the refs and we still won! (it doesn’t seem to matter whether the game was well officiated or not)
• I wish we could’ve played ________ instead, at least then it would’ve been a game! (doesn’t matter how close the actual game was)

Listen… if Tennessee fans who came to Tuscaloosa expecting to thump Alabama and leave losing a close and contested game can walk up to opposing fans that they don’t know and say “Hey, good game. We’ll get you back next year!” surely someone whose team just won could show a fraction of that level of class and just be gracious in their winning, right?

“It isn’t what you do, but how you do it.” ~John Wooden (For my less basketball-minded readers: he’s the Bear Bryant of College Basketball)

One would hope… although between facebook, myspace, and AIM… that seems not to be the case. It seems that there are a lot of people who lead pathetic, miserable little lives and need to supplement their own ego by kicking people (people who have done nothing to bring the comments upon themselves, no less) while they’re down.