Gottlieb: This One's For You

If you haven't realized by now, I like to look at the downside of everything. I think basketball analysts are stupid, commentators are idiots, fans are annoying and people that blog about college basketball are sad and pathetic losers. But last year something funny happened. All those over-paid, over-hyped, over-zealous, comb-over sportswriters got it right. The four teams picked atop the preseason AP poll were the four number one seeds come March, and also the four teams to advance to the Final Four. It was the first time in the history of the NCAA Tournament that all four number one seeds made it to the Final Four. I don't know if it was the first time that the preseason favorites advanced to the Final Four but let's just say it was unless proven otherwise (I follow the Fox News standard of journalistic integrity). Even more uncanny was the fact that the top four teams ended the season ranked in the same order as they began, with roughly the same percentage of votes. Isn’t that veeeerd (said in a Dutch accent)?

So what was the reason behind this phenomenon?

Was it blatantly obvious that the top four teams were just so much better than everyone else? Not the case, the top four ended with nine total losses between them. And of those nine losses, five were to unranked teams at the time. And there were four other teams that were voted into the top quartet during the course of the season, the same amount of new entrants as the previous year when the sportswriters only predicted one out of four top teams correctly.

Did they simply just pick the top teams from the previous year? Nope, only one team from the '06-'07 Final Four made it into the top four the following year, UCLA.

Are the sportswriters just that smart? Did they travel to the future and get a hold of a sports almanac like Biff did in Back to the Future Part Deux (dork alert)? Nope and nope.

I'll tell ya the reason behind this odd occurrence. The sportswriters got lucky. Those boneheaded ninnies that get paid to do nothing but talk sports with blatant predisposition and bias got handed the greatest gift since I got a remote control monster truck on my 20th birthday. And unfortunately for the rest of us that fortuitousness has led them to come back with even more annoying vigor, presumptuousness and overall douchebag-ness than ever before.

Here's to another season of listening to and reading their crap.


Good talk.