Bracket-urology

The West

By Bandwagon Burt
Wind Sock



How will the West be won in 2008, haha?! There are SO many good teams in this portion of the NCAA Tournament, it HAS to be considered the toughest region in the tournament, besides the East and maybe the South. Hello, UCLA – is there a LOVE DOCTOR in the house? – is easily the favorite to win the whole thing, but how can you ever discount the greatest college sports franchise of all time, Duke? And look out for Professor X and Connect-I-Cut in the Sweet 16.

The way I see it, there are only a few teams who could win the regional: the ones I’ve already mentioned, plus BYU, Drake, Purdue, West Virginia, Arizona, Texas A&M or Belmont. Between Duke, Drake, BYU and Purdue, there are probably more white people in this bracket than any other, which means GREAT DEFENSE and lots of 3-point shooting. I love the DUKIES, who will be the second-seed, and think they could be the team to beat, unless they get upset by West Virginia, Xavier, Purdue or Connecticut.

UCLA, of course, has the LOVE DOCTOR, along with lots of other guys that are really good. Kevin Love has carried his team all year, and even though they’ve played in a lot of close games, there’s no substitute for a PAC-10 TITLE. Plus, they’ve been in the Final Four the last two years, which means they’re really experienced, even though their best player is a freshman. So, they’ll probably win the bracket.

But Duke is really good, and XAVIER! Anytime you have a school named after one of the best X-Men in history, you know they’re going to do well. They have mind control! More importantly, they have David West, who is a beast for the New Orleans Hornets.

I TOTALLY FORGOT BAYLOR WAS IN THIS BRACKET. Forget everything I just said, UPSET CITY BABY. I like Baylor to get to the Elite Eight and lose to either UCLA or Western Kentucky. Can you imagine if Drake played Duke in the bracket? THOSE NAMES ARE TOTALLY SIMILAR, and they both wear blue in the jerseys. I would be so confused which team was which. I guess the difference is that one team would have COACH K GENIUS MASTERMIND calling the plays. Drake’s probably not going to get that far though, unless they shock the world and beat Connecticut.

The South

By Dakota Brezinski
Seven-year-old



Austin Peay! It sounds like pee! Peay Peay pee pee.

Silly Austin, he should change his name so people don’t always say mean things, like “Austin, do you have to Peay, because the potty is over there!” Maybe it won’t matter because Texas will beat them in the first round of the South region. Texas is still mad that Kevin Durant went to the NBA, and they are going to teach him a lesson. Poor Austin Peay.

Tanner also thinks it’s funny to say “Oral Roberts” all the time, but I don’t get why. I don’t think it’s funny to make fun of a man who loves Jesus so much. What if Jesus sends lightning down to kill Tanner? My favorite part about Oral Roberts is that their eagle likes to beat people up. I think they will beat Pittsburgh, because the eagle will kick the hurt Pittsburgh players like Levance Fields.

I am also cheering for Temple and St. Mary’s, because they also remind me of Jesus. Mary was Jesus’ mommy, and she bought him gifts like gold and Frankenstein. I think Frankenstein is scary, but not Jesus. He was not afraid and said, “ I will now make a bunch of loaves of bread and wine.” I can’t drink wine yet, but someday, I will sneak into daddy’s liquor drawer and try some.

I don’t really know much else about basketball. I like Tigers (rahr!), and Memphis has some, so they’ll probably win the whole thing. Tanner says only smart people play for Cornell and Stanford, so they will probably do a lot of thinking when they play against each other, and talk about math and science and then hit a couple baskets. I hate math and science, but do you know what I love? DUCKIES. So I’m cheering for Oregon, too.

The East

Marv Blackstone
Editor-in-chief


That Bruce Pearl is a crazy sonofabitch. Wearing orange, sweating a lot, hugging Erin Andrews. I'm sure you all saw that recently on Deadspin or something. You didn't see it here.

I used to cover Bruce as a coach back when he was at Southern Indiana University. I had taken a job a small Evansville weekly after being fired from the Boston Globe -- I siphoned gas out of my editor's car when I was short on cash -- and got to know him pretty well. I have a story about me, Bruce and three transgender Vietnamese midgets that I could tell, but I won't.

OK, fine. I will. One night, Bruce and I decided to an interview at the local Asian cuisine dinery. I always got the fried rice. Bruce always got the fried rice. He would sometimes tell them he wanted the "flied lice" and they would laugh a lot, and I would laugh a lot, and so would Bruce.

That night, we were talking about his team's postseason chances when into the restaurant wandered these three Vietnamese midgets. As usual, I was doing the interview with a fair amount of Scopolamine in my system, and things were foggy. The night was foggy. The midgets were short.

I got up to go to the bathroom, because I had had two burritos before coming to the Asian Cuisine place. I was in there for about 30 minutes or so. When I came back out, chaos reigned. Bruce was naked and sweaty, and rolling around on the floor, which was covered in a six-inch layer of shrimp flied lice. Two of the midgets were naked, and the other was smoking a cigarette while standing on stilts, near the corner of the restaurant. There were two ducks gallivanting about near the service counter. The guy on stilts was talking to the shopkeeper about the skyrocketing price of fennel. As Bruce hoisted one midget high into the air, he paused, then dropped the poor little fella. The midget hit the floor, hard.

Bruce stood back and observed the three midgets, the shopkeeper and myself.

"My GOD!" he exclaimed. "Look at you! You're in a 1-2-1-1 formation! That might actually work! There's no way I can get through this!"

Still naked, he ran across the rice-covered floor and outside. He hopped in his car, and sped away. And that, my friends, is how Bruce created his infamous full-court press scheme.

That sort of moxie and innovation is what I like in a coach. That's why Tennessee is my pick to win the East Region. Book it, hombres.

The Midwest

By Dr. Charles P. Ipswich IV
University Professor


Oh, you silly Americans and your round-ball. You exclaim that March is your time for madness, implementing the alliterative name because you feel it captures some sort of idealistic passion for sporting. I must tell you that your version of madness is inconsequential; for true madness, you should consult Thomas Lovell Beddoes, who became fixated upon death in his writings, and eventually killed himself.

That, you wankers, is madness.

Alas, I am here, so I may as well tell you what to expect from the Midwest Region of you bracket.

First, do not pick Kansas to win anything. Coach Bill Self is the modern-day equivalent of King Harold II, who seemed promising but was then destroyed during the Battle of Hastings. You may not understand this analogy, but it because you do not have tenure on the faculty staff of a major Ivy League institution.

Mmm, yes, diamond.

My teams to watch are Georgetown, Vanderbilt and USC. Georgetown has a lovely History Department, and a beautiful colonial campus where one can spend hours losing himself in the library, whether you want to study things ranging from John Burgoyne to Isabel of Gloucester.

Vanderbilt, meanwhile, is represented by a Commodore, which, as you know, is equivalent to Brigadier in the British Army. This demonstrates a passion going beyond most other teams in your round-ball gaming tourney. Yes, you cannot go wrong by employing the quiet strength of a Commodore, especially in his dazzling uniform.

USC has OJ fucking Mayo. Watch out.