Nothing But Iron: Tale of the Pride Piper March 18, 2009 by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. If you don’t have your Pride Pool entry in yet, it’s probably too late. The first game starts at 11:00 a.m. If you try to submit your picks after that time, you will be locked out. You can beg me to enter your picks manually, and I can do that, like I did for Mark Hamilton last year, but you will probably lose anyway, unlike Mark Hamilton, who actually won last year. In case you are new to the Pride Pool, there is no money at stake, which means you have nothing to lose when you lose, except your pride. The less pride you have at baseline, the less you have at stake. That has worked well for me. Those who played last year got invited automatically again this year. If you did not get an invitation and still want in, you will have to call me soon, like five minutes ago. But if I am asleep and you wake me up, I promise you will get a link to the 2006 NIT bracket instead of the one we use. If you are invited but just can’t get in because of technical ineptitude, call me for help, ask an 11-year old or join any one of a hundred thousand paper pools around. Lastly, remember your CBS Sportsline username and password. You will need them to log in next year. Write them down, or as I said on the message board, tattoo them to your butt cheek. I realize that it is good time to have been the inventor of the copy machine and a bad time to own a business for which employee focus is vital. Imagine if your business was emergency repair of copy machines. Something would have to give. I suppose I would know a thing or two about businesses where focus is vital. I assure you, however, that I will not engage your surgeon in dialogue about the Big East getting three No. 1 seeds or about Ty Lawson’s sore toe (which, technically, is kind of a medical thing) while he is just about to snip your appendix. I will, in fact wait until we are certain that it was actually the appendix he just snipped and then we will discuss that which cannot wait. Random interjection: Who cares if Ty Lawson misses the opener, exclamation point? Is that really relevant? With all due respect, which isn’t that much, it’s Radford. If NC can’t beat Radford with its assistant coaches, a couple bench players, and the kid who runs the sweat mop, there should be a gambling investigation. For sure your surgeon and I will not talk about expanding the NCAA field from 65 to 130, because we consider ourselves to be bright people–whether it is true or not–and bright people do not fix something that is imperfect but quite good enough in every way. Sure, I can say that because Wisconsin, a minor bubble team, did not end up in the NIT like Penn State and Northwestern. But, I swear on a $60 stack of Final Four programs (probably a stack of four) that I would have the same opinion even if Wisconsin had been snubbed. You have no way to prove otherwise, and if you do, you can write it in your own damn blog. Likewise we will not talk about elimination of automatic bids. I understand the logic behind this whiny idea–eliminating the auto bids means the committee can select the real best 65 teams, instead of the best 40 or so followed by a bunch of automatic qualifiers, some of whom might win a game in the NIT. I would keep the automatic bids for these reasons: 1) Cinderella is hot. Sure we would have still watched two years ago if George Mason had lost in the first round like it was supposed to, but how exciting to see the Patriots’ wildly improbable run to the Final Four. 1.3) This year’s George Mason, if there is one, will give us a team to cheer for when ours is done. 1.6) George Mason, Final Four: a great t-shirt. I own one. 2) The fact that lower seeded teams do advance means that there are worthy teams from minor (formerly mid-major, whatever that means) conferences, so the argument that all auto qualifiers are unworthy is flawed. 3) Bitch all you want if auto qualifiers start kicking out the likes of Pitt, NC, Louisville, Michigan State and Memphis. Just ain’t gonna happen. In other words, it doesn’t take even 65 teams to find the best one in the land, and that, after all, is the main purpose of the tourney. And yes, I do believe that Penn State is better than Morehead State, but I am over that. Of course there are those of you who don’t think a 6-game winning streak in a single elimination tournament necessarily identifies or validates the best team, or, stated like they say it, just because you get knocked out doesn’t mean your team is not the best. Whatever. Best is open to debate, but only up to the point of defining it. By definition, the best is the last team to win a game in college basketball. If you can’t accept that definition, make your own tournament that defines the best team as the one everyone thinks is best, head-to-head competition be damned. See if anyone signs up. I wouldn’t. Oh yeah, I suppose we have that in football. Your surgeon and I, between cases might discuss why I picked Wisconsin to beat Florida State. First I will tell you why I should definitely not have done that: 1) Wisconsin struggles to finish, so there is a good chance that the Badgers will compete for 37 minutes, hit a drought and lose by five. 2) Guard play has been inconsistent. At times Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon are super stars–big time performers who cannot be denied. At other times Hughes is turnover prone and Bohannon’s shooting slumps. 3) Marcus Landry is not Carl Landry. He’s a cool guy, a team player and fan favorite, but he rarely dominates. Here’s why I have looked past all of that: 1) It’s a new season–a fresh start. Wisconsin’s players are too seasoned to dwell on that which has already happened. 2) All five starters have NCAA tournament experience. 3) Wisconsin is a terrible draw for FSU. First of all it’s a 12-5 match up, and we know 12, as underdog seeds go, may lead you right up the beanstalk to the golden goose. For sure, nationwide, defense has become more trendy, but I would bet FSU has not seen much Big Ten-style defense. Just a hunch. 4) The Seminoles, like everyone else in the country, will not expect the Badgers to put up much of a fight. That would neglect the fact that the Badgers have put up a fight with just about every team they have played, including close games against Texas, Marquette, Ohio State, Michigan State, Minnesota and Purdue. True they lost most of those games, but with a few lucky breaks this team is a 4 seed. 5) This is another hunch, but is there a team from Florida that would not see a first-round win as an entitlement–show up, get your hand stamped and head to round two? O.K., maybe Florida International would not think that way, but I will not be surprised to walk away from the UW-FSU game wondering if that was the best the Seminoles could play. 6) The Seminoles will still be cocky from the Champs Sports Bowl win over the Badgers, but this is not football. 7) Joe Krabbenhoft. No, really, this is not football. 8) If Bohannon hits a Jon Bryantesque hot streak, that would be a wave Wisconsin could ride all the way to Boston. 9) Bo. 10) There are 11 reasons in favor and just three against. 11) Lastly, I made this pick because I am bad at predicting. Even if I nail this one, I will only be able gloat until my next failure, which won’t be far off. I can predict some things accurately. For example, I know if I give you 200 milligrams of propofol that you will lose consciousness within a minute, but damned if I can figure out these bracket thingies. On that note, I promise not to try to figure out the bracket thingies until you wake up. Addendum: Thank you, PJ Hill. You helped me teach my kid a math lesson. I asked him to assume that you had a good time before you were arrested at gun point for drunk and reckless driving. I then asked him how many hours of fun you might have had that evening. He estimated four hours. I asked how much money you stand to lose now that you have rendered yourself an NFL untouchable after your alleged use of stupidity-enhancing substances. We both agreed that a million dollars would not have been out of reach, depending on pre-draft performance. I asked my son how much it might have cost you per hour of fun. Yup, $250,000 per hour. Hope you had a great time. Expensive lesson for you. Free for my son. (I really thought Hill should have stayed at UW for his senior year, but what do I know?) __________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column. The author apologizes to Radford Highlanders fans for suggesting that your team will lose, even with the benefit of Lawson's bad toe. He does not apologize for including the sweat mop guy, because that was just plain funny, at least to the author. The author reminds Highlanders fans that he supports the preservation of automatic bids, so you can appreciate him for that, right? ©2009 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved, including the right to write bracket picks in pencil. Lightly.