Record, Round Five: 0-1 (you know that fuck you I took back last round after saying that the round prior? I take that back and thus restore my fuck you)
Overall Record: 14-26-1
Total Outlay, Round Five: $100.00
Total Winnings, Round Five: $0
Loss, Round Five: $100.00
Overall Loss: $155.93
I was at the Minnesota RollerGirls bout, partly because I needed to go to pick up another stamp in order to attend the annual after-season get-together (even though I promised myself I wouldn't because of what happened last year; more on that some other time), partly out of protest that the national semifinals are now on cable. And what's with these "Teamcasts," where TNT and trüTV each also show the game but have announcers local to each team provide biased commentating? They should call them "Homercasts," and I don't understand why someone would prefer that to the, for lack of a better term, "objective" broadcast on TBS. I may have made a mistake going into broadcast journalism in order to be a play-by-play man, but isn't there at least some reporting to do in that job? I've sidetracked myself. The in-house announcers were very good in providing the crowd with updates of both games, something I don't think they've done before, but should. Thanks also to the Roy Wilkins Auditorium wi-fi, which allowed me to keep track with my phone, too.
The announcers told me that my bracket was officially gone with Florida, my pick (and the pick of many others) to go all the way having lost to UConn. I tried to walk briskly back to the car to catch the end of the Wisconsin-Kentucky game; I got to a bar between the Wilkins and my car when I saw a couple people looking through the windows of a bar showing the game, then walking away. I got up to that window to see that Kentucky escaped Wisconsin, 74-73 -- bad, very bad for my bet of Wildcats -2.
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And so it is. Turns out I am still in debt and therefore need this championship game to salvage my season. Unfortunately, I have no fucking clue, absolutely no fucking clue, what to bet.
First of all, let me get the obvious out of the way: I didn't expect to see either Kentucky or UConn in the title game, let alone both. I will say that I had entertained the thought of the Wildcats making the Final Four. I mean, not just that bracket but that half-bracket, with Kentucky, Louisville and Wichita St., that was ridiculously loaded. The team that got out of that to reach that Midwest Regional Final would be battle-tested. I just thought it would be Louisville beating Kentucky. I had the Wildcats defeated Wichita St., but I ultimately decided they were too me-me-me to get past the Cardinals. But since their first tournament game they have been absolutely clutch, pulling games out at the end four straight times. That's got to mean something -- well, that and the fact that they have the best on-paper talent in top-flight college basketball. They've had that since the season started, they just chose not to demonstrate that until it counted.
On the other hand I had UConn losing in the real first round to St. Joseph's. Their Head Coach is Kevin Ollie, a journeyman NBA player who nonetheless carved out a good career (even rode the pine with the Timberwolves a couple years; in fact Minnesota may have been his last stop before retiring) but was only in his second year of not only coaching the Huskies but also being a Head Coach, period. Some people who thought they could go all the way thought the only way of doing that was for Shabazz Napier to basically do what Kemba Walker did a few years back and put this team on his back. Well, Napier has done a lot of the heavy lifting to get them to this point. The other major factor in UConn's run is their stifling defense, managing to get all their opponents (especially Florida) off their game.
So you see my dilemma here. Two teams, neither of which I thought had a chance of getting to this point, each win in different ways. Seriously, it pisses me off that I don't have a read on this game. So what's my play?
1) UConn-Kentucky Over 134.5 (I've looked around and saw no advice on the Total. Thought about this for the past few hours and I'm sticking with it, which usually means danger for me but good things for you if all you do is bet against me. I have no idea why I would say over besides the fact that the championship game final score, which serves as the tie-breaker for both of my bracket pools, I had Florida beating Arizona 70-69) $200
Good luck!
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