Once again flanked by Paddy O’Brien in the terraced alleyway near the Wilde Rover pub, the old codger has a charming case of Turrets. Taking a subversive a precursory St. Patrick’s Day nip of the Creature from an airplane bottle and propped up by a Goose head cane, he laughs at the keen pun naming the establishment, while colorfully admonishing the choice of a young couple sucking down Irish Car Bombs on the pub’s back wooden deck built around an Oak tree. Patience is not even the dusty memory of an old fling. “Boyo” this and “Feckin boyo” that, the Ides are never March in O’B’s presence, and if the NCAA tournament could ever be have a face, or a such a personality, it would be the piercing gaze of Paddy in his flesh marked by ruddy cheeks, and an essence that has all the subtlety of a temperamental late Winter day.
In immediately clearing up the ostracization of teams on the West coast, as a result of the toxic concoction of politics and sports, the Pac-12, no thanks to the departed $4 million dollar per year androgynous commissioner Larry Scott, was undersold, underrated and a perfect 5 and 0 in the first round. This of course includes the obligatory Covid-assist to Oregon in being gifted another victory by default (please see how the football season played out). Fortunately, most Liberals like to win as much as anyone else, and basketball in the blue Western states is supported by every pronoun still yet invented.
Phil Knight U’s opponent, VCU, had a slew of positive tests, enough to not allow at least five able bodied players to compete in the first round matchup, as 27 pages of NCAA policy stipulate the rules and regulations governing protocol during March Madness alone. The governing body of college athletics infamous for industrialized bureaucracy, where an institution can receive minor disciplinary sanctions for reporting a recruit taking a selfie with a NFL star alum, but an institution facing possible allegations of paid “coed companions” visiting potential scholarship athletes at the local motel is still allowed to play. The blatant oversight by the organization in allowing the disparity between 2021 Men’s and Women’s tournament basketball to extend from the facilities right down to the swag bags is expected of the self-serving entity, but does not forgive the reprehensible unequal treatment of female hoopsters, and their coaching staffs.
Back to the “12-pack” cool and refreshing taste and official libation of March Madness, the continued audacity of the mainstream sports media to fall into the ideological trap set by politicians on the Left coast indirectly throwing their scholarship sports team under the self-driving bus, has ruined the entire reputation of the conference. As news personnel of the modern information age are generally reactionaries, the paltry and forgettable four or five game college football season set the proverbial table for the low expectation bias to extend throughout hoops season. Marred by cancellations, delays, chaos, and the resurgence of the Merry Pranksters made possible by a grant from Insane Clown Posse, the Pac-12 gridiron brand sputtered, and was like pounding shots of Theraflu to the anchors at the big sports networks and popular bloggers. The acrid aftertaste of failure was beset with the reality that Washington was not actually playing against Oregon, or USC was not battling UCLA, the stringent competition was happening off the field, as public health officials savagely tussled with election officials and athletic directors in a cage match that would have actually been watchable in primetime, if not for Covid safety measures forcing live meetings to be reduced to unintriguing zoom calls.
Profiting from the proximity to divisiveness and hate spewed by public employees, legislators, and of course a trio of bellowing governors, the proud Jesuit institution of Gonzaga university, paved its way for a possible historic season by going undefeated, and successfully negotiating the minefield of California, Oregon, and Washington health policy in somehow playing 26 regular season and conference tournament games. The heralded college, located in Spokane, Washington, is a testament to importance of “working hard, and smart” in achieving such a sustained level of success, while existing in a state that has been regressing for the two decades.
Along with Loyola of Chicago and the emblematic sister Jean, Gonzaga and head coach Mark Few join the Ramblers, and two other religious-based institutions who made the dance, and proceeded to at least win one game. As of publication, Abilene Christian just ended their Cinderella with a second round loss to UCLA, while Oral Robert’s University, stands with the Zags and Loyola in the Sweet 16.
Change never did glob onto Paddy O’Brien or vise versa, which makes the upsetting upsets intoxicatingly palatable, and the subsequent incoherently cerebral sputtering white papers recalibrated to the saintly muse of a kindred soul. Aside from the wreckage of another failed bracket, and the foul rhetoric designing a submissive boutique prison cell for free will, everyone’s favorite acquired taste of an arcane uncle has deftly evaded the pandemic, ferrying an abundance of mystic and reticulated leisure to living rooms and bars and imagined for those who chose living, over a baleful solitude of perpetual desolate bone-chilling winds.