Basketball Withdrawal

After that amazing weekend of basketball, I couldn't help feeling a bit of a withdrawal. Granted there were two amazing NBA games with playoff implications battled out on Monday, but what I found lacking was being able to revert to my bracket and compare it to the other people in my pool. Speaking of my NCAA March Madness bracket, despite losing Kansas, who I had losing in the finals, the other 3 are still alive. I suspect that if Baylor makes it, my chances of winning the pool are pretty good. Can't wait till Thursday!

March Madness is Coming!

Definitely my second favorite time of the year. (Don't worry, you'll KNOW when it's my favorite). So is everyone ready for a couple weeks of fun basketball and comparing brackets. Anyways, here's my final four: Kansas, Syracuse, Kentucky, and Baylor.

I realize it's not so exciting with three #1 seeds, but you gotta realize, the college game talent disparity seems to get larger and larger all the time. So the better teams are really that much better. Don't expect too many upsets, as exciting as that may be.

My final prediction: Kentucky over Kansas. Shocking right? The two best freshmen in the country will bring home the championship.

College Basketball Jerseys

March Madness excites me like no other month in the sports year. As you can tell, I'm already thinking about it. The topic here however, is the notion of buying college basketball jerseys that bear the players' names. More accurately, you simply can't. That's because the players are college students, hence amateur players, and shouldn't be used to make money for whatever organization, be it the college or the NCAA. That's quite ok with me. However, some of the schools, Kansas *ahem*, allow folks to buy personalized jerseys, choosing the number and the name of anyone. So I might be smart enough to pick number 11 and the name Wall on the back, because my family name is Wall, or not. The point is, the schools can charge extra to customize this and still make money off of John Wall, even though he's not getting a single penny. So the school still can't mass produce those jerseys, big deal. I think it's horrible that players have to risk injury and give up a few years of their lives while schools create this loophole.

Back to the point of organizations not being allowed to make money off of students. I must point out the hypocrisy of the NCAA being a virtual monopoly, making tons of money from student athletes. Sure, they're a non-profit and they're even tax exempt. But they do get decide how to run their organization and what salaries to pay.

Anyways, I'll stop ranting about this other than to say go out and support your favorite teams this March. And if you're going to buy a jersey for the NCAA tournament, go get an official school jersey without the customization. Alright, good luck on your brackets!