Tag Archives: NCAA Basketball

UConn: Showing The Unexpected Can Happen

Things are supposed to go to plan, right? Trusted persons and experts should be able to look at something and say this and that will happen and it will. The UConn Huskies proved that sports aren’t for those who follow plans to a T.

If you are not affiliated with Connecticut in some way and said that the Huskies were going to win the NCAA Tournament Championship at the beginning of the year, it probably would have been suggested that you get your head examined. The same cross-eyed look would have come your way if you had said that in the middle of the Sweet 16, too. UConn simply wasn’t supposed to win.

Kentucky was supposed to. The Wildcats were number one in a whole lot of rankings and polls before any college hoops had tipped this season, then they faltered, but started playing well together when it mattered and got all the way to the championship game. It wasn’t a David-Goliath matchup, but it was pretty close.

UConn winning is the reason we watch sports. We watch for the unexpected. We might not admit that that’s why we’re watching or even consciously know that’s why we are watching, but that’s why we love sports.

Twins fans on Friday sat through four innings of baseball and we’re thinking ‘Oh, my God. Mike Pelfrey might pitch a perfect game.’ It fell apart, but that unexpected had us hooked.

We watch sports for that Brett Farve to Greg Lewis moment in the back of the endzone against the San Francisco 49ers. For the Christian Laettner shot. For Blake Hoffarber hitting the buzzer beater from his butt.

American society as a whole loves reality television because it’s ‘unscripted’ and anything can happen. We know that that isn’t always the case in reality TV, but it is in sports. Sports is the ultimate reality TV, anything can happen. The WWE even proved that it doesn’t always go to script in scripted sports.

Congratulations, UConn. You reached a pinnacle that not many reach and when you got to the pinnacle you made it your own. You made the unexpected happen. Any given Sunday.

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Perfect NCAA Bracket Now Means a Billion Dollars

Think you know college basketball? Well, you could win a billion dollars for your smarts. I’m not kidding.

Renowned business man Warren Buffett has teamed up with Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and founder of Quicken Loans, to offer the contest. All that entrants have to do is get a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket. That’s all.

The USA Today says your odds are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to get a perfect bracket. That long number is 9.2 quintillion, so if you don’t fill out a perfect bracket, you will at least have that knowledge.

Although the chances of filling out a perfect bracket aren’t great, it’s worth a shot because the 20 closest entrants to perfection will receive $100,000, which has to go towards building a home, refinancing a home or remodeling a home, but still its $100,000.

Another catch is you have to be at least 21 years old and a U.S. citizen, so kids must steal their parents’ identities for one more thing on the internet.

Additionally, Gilbert will be donating a million dollars to nonprofits in Detroit and Cleveland to help education in the inner city which is pretty cool.

The bill more than likely will only end up being four million dollars, assuming no one that enters the tournament actually gets that billion dollars, two million will go to the 20 runner-ups and the other two million will go to charity.

Gilbert and Buffett can find the four million dollars in their couch cushions, so this really won’t be putting a crunch on either of their wallets. It’s a neat deal that will get people to Quicken Loans website and make us further forget about the Cavs actually not winning a championship before LeBron.

The press release was not typed in Comic Sans.