Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

Happy “Where is TruTV!?!” Day to those who celebrate.

(Not counting you sickos who watched the play-in games. Or love Impractical Jokers.)

 

Wake up, shower, get dressed, grab breakfast, go fulfill a lifetime dream. Not a bad little Thursday.

 

Welp, it took me 22 1/2 hours from when I got on the tram in Amsterdam until I hit my bed in Richmond early this morning, but I'm so fucking ready to sit around, drink beer, eat wings and watch this thing unfold today. The jetlag can wait.

(Aside, after going through customs in three different European airports with very little line and plenty of automated kiosks that just read your passport and let you through, I got off the plane at Dulles and waited more than 100 minutes to get through a line of at least a thousand people just to have the customs agent wave me through with no question. It was jarring and quite frankly made America look like a third world country. There were maybe six people working, which is unaccfuckingceptable when you know you have several international flights incoming at one time. Do fucking better.)

 

I'm sorry for your trouble Cosmo, and yes, re-entering the US is a ridiculous process, but you travel enough to make Global Entry a good investment. I highly recommend it.

 

I'm definitely considering it ... even if I only travel internationally usually once a year, standing in that line when you just want to get in your car and go home is kind of soul crushing after an eight-hour flight. I was told it's good for five years, so $20 a trip doesn't seem that egregious.

 

And yet it happens in the majority of NCAA tournaments (and is WAY more likely than a 15 seed advancing to the final eight). Which is enough for coaches to think, "So you're saying there's a chance..." and be all in on keeping the conference tournament format alive.

 

There seems to be some support for Colgate to potentially spring a 15-2 upset over Texas, but I just don't see it.

Colgate's only quality win this year was at Syracuse in November. The Raiders haven't played anyone with a pulse since December 10 when they lost to Vermont. They lost by 27 to Auburn. Just too big of a step up in competition to expect an upset here. The only other Patriot League team in the top 200 was Navy at 173.

 

The tournament is an odd event for me in that today and tomorrow are two of the most enjoyable days on my sports spectator calendar. but as the field gets whittled down, my pleasure and my interest decline. When I was an active writer, I loved covering Final Fours, but from a spectator viewpoint, I watch the national title game out of a sense of duty and/or the sunk cost fallacy rather than for sheer entertainment (I admit sometimes you get a great game).

 

I am 100 percent with you that this four-day span is my favorite time in the sports year. I do enjoy the rest of the tournament, but it tapers off from here.

 

Dulles is so appropriately named since it’s the dullest airport I’ve been to.

 

Last year, when USC played Miami in the opener, it was on TruTV. I discovered it was the only one of the four tournament channels I didn't get. So I spent the late morning in a nearly-empty Buffalo Wild Wings bar watching the game.
When I saw that UCLA-UNC Asheville is on TruTV tonight, I checked and found it on my TV system. Channel 350-something. I wonder where it has been all this time.

 

As Charles Barkley once said, TruTV is "down there near BET on the guide."