Madness

(originally posted at eclaircie.diaryland.com)

March Madness is upon us, which in my world simply means a quick trip to espn.com some nights to see who won the games played that day. I care about it enough to check scores, but not enough to spend time watching games or any of that. But nonetheless…it adds a little more fun to life.

For me, the women’s tourney is just as important as the men’s, because, let’s face it, schools I care about somehow are never any good at men’s basketball.

My rules for postseason college sports cheering are as follows:

Number one loyalty lies with BYU, naturally.

Purdue is almost as important as BYU. I think Purdue sports will always hold a special place in my heart because it was during my junior and senior years of high school, when I was living in a house where you could hear the cheers from good ol’ Ross-Ade stadium on game days and I’d walk by good ol’ Mackey Arena every week after flute lessons, that I experienced my sports awakening. Before those years, I didn’t care at all. Well, there was some love for Burroughs High School football in me somewhere, but I think that had more to do with marching season than anything else. I would’ve never read an article in the sports section of the newspaper or purposely watched a game before my years in Indiana, though. Sports just suddenly started interesting me, though sometime in there. To be honest, I think Mr. Conaway might’ve been a big factor. He’s a big sports person and also one of my favorite people in the world to talk to…so, it was good to know what he was talking about. And then it was interesting, so I kept on caring about sports. Not that I’d call myself a sports person at all, but I won’t pretend like I don’t find them entertaining. Often people are surprised that most of my favorite professional teams come from the Midwest, as I’m really far more a Californian than a Hoosier, and this is the explanation: Indiana was the setting for my sports awakening. So I’ll cheer on the Colts and Cubs and Pacers (though the Jazz has to come first NBA-wise or I would be excommunicated from the Wonnacott family…you would not believe what the Jazz do to my grandpa’s emotions...also, the very first games I ever watched with any interest whatsoever were the ‘97 NBA finals, back in the Jazz/Bulls days), thank you very much. And this paragraph probably should’ve been broken up somewhere, but it was just supposed to be about how Purdue came next in teams to cheer for and the subject couldn’t get more than one paragraph even if it ran off with an uncontrolled tangent, never to be seen again.

Once Purdue and BYU are out of things (now the case in both tourneys, after the Purdue women’s loss yesterday), next loyalties go to any Mountain West team. Which is why, despite some hard feelings, Utah’s women have a hearty “way to go!” coming from me.

After the Mountain West comes any Big Ten team. There are none left in this year’s basketball tourneys though, so…whatever for the Big Ten.

Then comes low-seeded teams that are somehow still in the game, because who doesn’t like a Cinderella story? So George Mason’s definitely a favorite. Their game yesterday is one I actually wish I had watched because nothing’s better than the underdog pulling a win out of overtime. And on the women’s side, this is where Utah gets my vote again, because they’re the lowest-seeded team in the elite eight.

After that, it’s a free-for-all with all sorts of important factors (colors, mascots, people I know who go there, people I know that cheer for them (Scott: I had a really annoying roommate last year who was an LSU fan…I don’t think I could ever support that team.), etc.) going into the decision. These are the teams that I just kind of pick as favorites, but don’t actually care if they win or lose. It’s more just to have a side when discussing games with people.