Which Will Last Longer?

An admittedly morbid thought but it strikes me as we approach both the brink of war with Iraq and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament that I'm not sure which will last longer. Will Baghdad fall before the Texas Longhorns? Will Saddam outlast the Kentucky Wildcats?

Considering the fact that this annual exercise in futility otherwise known as the NCAA Tournament bracket has confounded me year in and year out, I've decided to abolish the traditional efforts of using my limited knowledge of the teams involved and my best efforts at guessing probability charts, point guards and regional advantages for a less scientific approach.

Thus, in the first round, I did the following: took the starting lineups of each team plus their top two reserves and assigned a number system 4 for seniors, 3=juniors, 2=sophomore and 1 for freshmen. That number, plus the amount of victories each team had in the last ten games became each teams' aggregate score. It's called the Experience and Momentum Theory. It's an admittedly flawed system yet no more flawed than pulling out my hair trying to figure which teams will pull off the upsets, which teams will produce as hoped and which teams will fail to show up. Using this system, the following winners advanced:

MIDWEST: Kentucky, Utah, Weber State, Dayton, So. Illinois, Holy Cross, Indiana & Pitt
WEST: Arizona, Gonzaga, Wisc.-Mil., Western Ky., Creighton, Duke, Memphis & Kansas
SOUTH: Texas, LSU, BYU, San Diego, UNC Wilm., Troy State, Colorado & Sam Houston
EAST: Oklahoma, California, Butler, Louisville, Penn, Manhattan, St. Joes, & E. Tenn State.

The glaring weirdness of the system was of course, in the South, which created 6 upsets out of 8 games. The other glaring weirdness was that there were two #15 seeds (Sam Houston and E. Tennessee State)that toppled #2s (Florida and Wake respectively). It isn't likely that both of those #2 seeds will lose but then again, Florida, 6-4 over its last 10 games, isn't exactly cruising into this tournament and Wake Forest is not just very young but also turns the ball over alot. So, possible.

What I was surprised about is that all told, other than the South, there were only 11 upsets out of the 24 other match-ups. And most of those upsets, other than perhaps Western Kentucky over Illinois, were more the result of idiotic and nonsensical seedings than actually hard-to-believe results.

In the SECOND ROUND, I discarded the Experience and Momentum Theory because frankly, it would have produced a Final Four of Weber State, Sam Houston, Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Penn. While in theory, such a result might well reflect the sort of chaotic environment the world is entering into, the likelihood of it actually coming to pass was about as likely as the Knicks winning the World Championship this season and we know how absurd that is.

So, for the second round, I developed a new theory which used the winning percentage of each teams' coach (at that University) coupled with the assist/turnover ratio of each teams' top 7 players. This theory produced the following second round winners:

MIDWEST: Kentucky, Dayton, Holy Cross and Pitt
WEST: Arizona, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Creighton and Kansas
SOUTH: LSU, San Diego, UNC-Wilmington, and Sam Houston
EAST: Oklahoma, Butler, Penn and St. Joes.

The pattern we see here is of course, the continually skewed East which already had only one top five seed remaining prior to a LSU upset over Texas AND the continued onslaught of those pesky Bearkats of Sam Houston, led by Robert Shannon.

Nevertheless, all but one of the number one seeded teams remained and so despite the upsets, the bracket still wasn't looking too ridiculous to believe.

For the next round, I considered myself lucky that these idiosyncratic methods hadn't produced far worse results and went for the traditional TEAM MASCOT THEORY. This theory of course, pits the likelihood of victory of one mascot over another, by far the most scientific method available to date. The results were tricky, sometimes even difficult:

MIDWEST
KENTUCKY over DAYTON: An easy one. Wildcats over Flyers. Because, "Flyers" being so vague, I could invent whatever definition I wanted. They could be flies, butterflies, feeble birds, even Air Force pilots. I chose butterflies and since I believe a Wildcat can beat a butterfly, Kentucky goes to the next round.
PITT over HOLY CROSS: A no brainer. Panthers over Crusaders. Crusaders were from like, the 13th century and they didn't have very sophisticated weaponry. I think a panther could take them, provided it had the element of surprise.

WEST
ARIZONA over WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE: A very tough battle between Wildcats and Panthers. Maybe even a double overtime affair. I could have gone with the "wild feline of small to medium size, like a lynx" definition, but I decided instead to use the "workers' strike unauthorized by their union" definition because, well, I can't really fathom Wisconsin-Milwaukee making it past Arizona, even if they are "panthers" because frankly, I'm not really convinced there are any panthers in Milwaukee so perhaps they are the "figment of the imagination Panthers" but such a mascot name is too long for the jerseys. In the end, I figured the battle scene resembled some sort of Hieronymus Bosch-like painting.
KANSAS over CREIGHTON: Another no-brainer. JayHAWKS over the seemingly docile Blue Jays.

SOUTH:
LSU over SAN DIEGO: It got a little interesting for a moment, the battle of the Tigers and the "Toreros" (which means bullfighters in Spanish). Had it been the Chicago BULLS against the Toreros, well, I probably would have gone with San Diego, but I think a tiger is a little smarter than one of those big, ugly bulls isn't going to just prance around while some bullfighter shoves sharps sticks in him.
UNC-WILMINGTON over SAM HOUSTON: It's another tough match: Seahawks against Bearkats but because of the strange spelling of Sam Houston's mascot, I get the impression it's like one of those little retarded bearkats, not a more formidable, fierce one.

EAST:
OKLAHOMA over BUTLER: Sooners were supposed to be tough, ornery settlers. Bulldogs, even if they were pit bulls, can't really take humans, at least not according to my charts. Humans usually defeat dogs.
ST. JOES over PENN: Normally, I'd say humans could take a hawk but in the case of the human in question being a Quaker, who I believe are pretty passive, religious sorts, I'd guess the hawk would get the better of the Quaker.

So, now down to the final 8 teams, I was left with some tough choices and decided to use a new theory once again. This theory is called the TEAM I LIKE THEORY or TILT. This theory is based solely on which team I'd rather play for or whomever I like better, for whatever reason.

MIDWEST:
KENTUCKY over PITT: If Kentucky goes to the Final Four, all hell breaks loose in Kentucky. If Pitt advances, what happens? Another shot and a beer? It's a football town, a fading steel workers town for crissakes, they don't belong getting this far any more than a team like "Vermont" or "Wagner".

WEST:
ARIZONA over KANSAS: Let's just say Lute Olsen is still one of my favorite coaches.

SOUTH:
LSU over NC-Wilmington: I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not rooting for a team with a hyphen in its name. It's just not dignified.

EAST:
OKLAHOMA over ST. JOES: Fact: No school with the name "Saint" anything has every won the NCAA Men's Basketball title and they aren't going to start now.

FINAL FOUR:

ARIZONA over KENTUCKY: Wildcats against the Wildcats. Wildcats win.
OKLAHOMA over LSU: Let's face it, I just don't like the South.

FINAL:
The University of Oklahoma has made it to the NCAA finals twice: In 1947, they lost to Holy Cross, 58-47 and in 1988, they lost to Kansas, 83-79. This year will be an overtime thriller, but Oklahoma will keep its perfect losing record:

ARIZONA 89 OKLAHOMA 86