And the upsets roll on in!

By Eshaan Joshi

“There are three things that are inevitable: Death, Taxes, and the University of Kentucky, Lexington choking in March” 

— Ancient Chinese Proverb

It’s March, there are a whole lotta squeaky shoes, and there’s nothing better than watching the guy who’s gonna do your taxes in 10 years throw a wrench in a future NBA All-Star’s hopes of winning a ring.

And that’s the best part of March Madness, one of America’s three recognized national holidays. It’s the one time of the year when you can watch upsets, storylines, and strange Cinderella teams play it out — and it’s an absolute blast.

Unless, of course, you’re part of the Southeastern Conference, where this year, it just means less. The SEC sent a number of teams to the big dance and managed to somehow prove that maybe the entire conference oughta be relegated to Division II.

Now, that’s a bit harsh, and the SEC didn’t start off strong in play-in games. But you can’t hold those against them, play-ins are always weird seeded teams. The kicker that reminded me, nay, America, nay, the whole world, that the SEC has no earthly idea what it’s doing was when the mighty University of Kentucky Wildcats squared off against the Oakland University Golden Grizzlies.

Even though Oakland is in California (and Pittsburgh), this Oakland was in Michigan. The strange geographical manipulation got to UK, when the team fully choked the game away and lost 80-76. Their fate was sealed by a 25 year old sixth year senior who shot, get this, 300 three-point shots this year. He only shoots threes. The man is allergic to the paint, and has decided he’s gonna social distance himself from the net until he can hammer down enough threes to win games. Shooting at 37 percent, that’s pretty impressive as far as performance goes, and it came in clutch in this game, as he went 10 for 20 from the line in a dominant performance. Mind you, these weren’t easy, uncontested shots either, Kentucky was really trying to get him, he just kept getting away with it.

If more teams shot 50 percent from the three, they might win more. Just putting that out there. UK, if you’re firing Coach Cal, let me know, I got the chops to take y’all to a championship.

Kentucky losing in the Round of 64 is another disappointing result for one of the most storied programs in college basketball, which has now won one tournament game in the last five seasons. Coach Cal’s shine of reaching six Elite Eights in eight years, and winning the whole thing back in ’11-’12 is slowly coming off, as the team has floundered in the first weekend since Covid and NIL.

On the other end of the spectrum, we hate nerds here in the sports section. We’re all certified jocks, especially Kyle Hynes, my favorite baseball writer from central Pennsylvania. But sometimes, us jocks can embrace nerds, and really come to enjoy spending time with them, when they do something good for us.

Like, when the prep school boys of Yale took down Auburn. Because the SEC likes getting embarrassed, Auburn, another top 4 seed that should have made easy work of the Ivy-league champs, cannot do anything normal in March. That game didn’t have the special storylines of the Oakland-UK game, mainly because nobody knows who goes to Yale and half of them are gonna work at Goldman Sachs anyway, but also because it was just a genuinely bad result for Auburn. The team had played excellently all year and just couldn’t put it together on defense when it really counted, and the Bulldogs Old Yeller’d them.

And finally, Kansas University, the KU to your UK, got completely blown out by Gonzaga, because the Zags cannot miss the Sweet Sixteen, so it is written, so it shall be done.

Take care, and have fun watching the second week of March Madness!