I grew up watching college basketball in a place called The Barn. It was ugly on the outside, ugly on the inside, felt excessively liable to fall over at any raucous moment, and made you wonder if its nickname wasn't some affectionate allusion but rather a literal reference to a questionably legal farming operation some number of feet below the hardwood.
You know what else it was? F***ing awesome.
The Barn was spectacularly imperfect, which made it a perfect match for the game played inside it.
Imperfection leads to variability which leads to chaos. You stack enough chaos in close proximity and you get Madness.
Only the most delusional stubborn of basketball purists would tell you that March could come within a Gordon Hayward half court heave of what it is without that Madness.
And that presents our dilemma, heroic hoops homeboys and homegirls: Why do all March Madness competitions revolve around the picks and not the Madness?
That's all about to change. Warm up your Absurd-O-Meter 4000. Grab your predictive POGS. Bust out your Bud Light Lime deck chair. It's time for March Madness, The SZN style.
Of course we're gonna fill out brackets. Of course we're gonna crown a champ (and only ONE champ, because No Damn Ties). And of course we're gonna pay some cash to the best bracketeers among us.
But you know what else Commish and GM are gonna do? We're gonna pay out the best comments throughout the Tournament, because once again, it's about the Madness, ya'll.
You remember that time when you were 11? You drained a deep 3 en route to a career-high five points (never to be eclipsed) in your AAU game, and dude in the plush courtside seats yelled, "SILKY SMOOTH LIKE VERMONT MAPLE SYRUP!" You were confused then. But Vermont will probably be a 12-seed in this year's Tournament...
You know what to do. And we want to hear your story.
When your bracket is inevitably busted after Wichita State - which is somehow a super scary 8/9 seed every single year except that one year they were weirdly a 1-seed but then lost to an 8-seed because #poetry - downs your eventual champion in the second round, are you out? WELL, WITH THAT ATTITUDE YOU ARE.
What if Wichita State makes the Final Four, along with Princeton, Akron, and Winthrop? Could you still win? OH YES YOU COULD.
Once again, you know what to do. And we want to hear your story.
$100 to the best comment pre-tipoff. $100 to the best comment during the first round. $100 to the best comment pre-Sweet Sixteen. $100 to the best comment pre-Final Four. And $100 to the best Tournament-capping comment.
It's about the Madness, people. And we're gonna embrace it like Jay Wright embraces Gucci swag.
It's about the Madness. Celebrating the imperfection. Making fun of it when it produces chaos. Standing in awe of it when it produces unbridled joy.
It's about George Mason, about Butler, and about DUNK CITY.
It's about VCU from the First Four to the Final Four.
It's about Carmelo, about Bryce Drew, about Adam Morrison, and about Kemba f***ing Walker.
My most lasting March Madness memory is about Bobby Jackson - the man (kid) who made high socks impossibly cool and transformed Minnesota into a once-in-a-generation title contender.
They lost in the Final Four to Kentucky, because of course. Then that season was wiped from the books due to an academic scandal under then-coach Clem Haskins.
And in a sense, that's the most perfectly imperfect way it could have gone down.
I'm raising a glass. Create a bracket on The SZN - it's 100% free - and join me in a cheers to the Madness.
Join our March Madness bracket for free, and make the NCAA Tournament more fun than it's ever been before:
