Originally, this was conceived as a diatribe against college basketball. About how today’s game has waned so significantly over
the last decade that were The Crew given the choice between watching elderly
porn for six hours and a half of college basketball, it’s not a foregone conclusion that we would pick
the latter.
However, it has come to our attention that we perhaps have become a
touch too overwrought, a tad too quick, for instance, to spasm into an
angst-ridden rant against a nameless college hoops writer who seemed to think the Ohio Valley Conference Championship game challenged the last episode of
M*A*S*H in the Nielsen Ratings or, say, Adam Schefter, who erroneously reported
on Twitter recently that Vegas set Seattle and San Francisco as co-favorites to win Super
Bowl next season after a flurry of recent free-agent moves by
both teams (Nobody did that. New England was the favorite the morning after the
Super Bowl, and they remain the favorite today. Dude literally just made it up, but it was retweeted more than 2,000 times as of last count. But we digress).
As a result, ‘C'est la vie’ is our new motto, because being burdened
by the foolishness of others is no way to go through life. Also, considering we
haven’t posted in this space since early February – when we capped an amazing
but completely fortuitous run betting football – it’s probably best that we
find a way to corral the negativity, lest we alienate our readership, which
spans the globe (Canada still counts) and numbers in the fours.
So, even as no reasonable person can rightly dispute that
college basketball has declined immeasurably, seemingly becoming
more difficult to watch with each passing year, we love the product. We, in fact, contend
that watching college hoops this season has been a bit like listening to a
great jazz musician, at times wildly improvisational, yet still fluid
and full of grace. And though conferences and teams across the board are
flooded with middling, flawed talent that has been failed spectacularly by the
horrific state of the current AAU system – which by all outer appearances exists pimp out young kids to shoe companies – the
game is blossoming, possibly the best it has ever been. And certainly, there’s
no way that we have devoted more time over the last three months to Biggest Loser on NBC than college basketball on any network – which, again, kicks tons of ass.
Looming over the commencement of the NCAA tournament on
Thursday, of course, is the cold, hard reality that this memorable season will
soon be coming to an end. Millions will have severe withdrawals, scurrying like
heroin addicts to all corners of the entertainment universe to replace the
white-knuckle excitement generated by two athletically limited teams struggling
to find the mid-50s. Perhaps, they can find some solace in soccer, which never
fails to produce intriguing theater, not with an endless parade of European men
falling to the ground as if they had been hit with a CIA drone.
Ok, that was roughly 500 words of pure snark, and we are a bunch of
a-holes. Still, The Crew is looking forward to the tournament -- if for no other reason than every living person should know what it feels like to place 32 wagers and drink 40 beers in the
span of 48 hours. It speaks to the the underlying premise of The Playhouse, which has always been, ‘If
you can bet on it, it’s awesome.’ So place your wagers, America ... just cover your eyes after you do it.
Super Play of the Day
Boise State -1.5
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