Friday, March 23, 2018

The thing about brackets

It's a pretty safe bet that after just the first round of games, every NCAA hoops bracket in the world had been broken. If the Univ. Maryland @ Baltimore County (UMBC) knocking off overall #1 seed Virginia didn't do it, then Buffalo trashing Arizona surely completed the task. Huge upsets both.

The tournament would continue to get wackier and wackier. One need only look at a couple Elite Eight match-ups for proof.

In the South, #9 seed Kansas St. will face off against #11 seed Loyola of Chicago for a berth in the Final Four. Who, in their wildest dreams, could have imagined such a wacky scenario playing out?

But it did.

In the West, #3 Michigan tangles with #9 Florida St. Nary a 1 or 2 in sight. Weird.

In the East, things are a bit more orderly/normal. #1 Villanova will take on #3 Texas Tech.

And the Midwest played out rather mundanely with #1 Kansas taking on #2 Duke.

Yet for all the twists, turns, and upsets the tourney has provided thus far, another even weirder possibility still exists.

The way the bracket is set up, both Kansas and Kansas St. are two wins away from meeting each other in the --gasp -- FINALS?

Sure, those two games for each will be anything but easy. They'll have to slog through some mighty tough competition

But it's possible, and given how many strange things have already happened in this year's version of March Madness, who's to say that couldn't come about as well?

And if it did, wouldn't that be the coup de grace for the state of Kansas? Their two major universities, with apologies to Wichita St., locking horns for all the proverbial marbles down in San Antonio?

It would be just about enough to do the Jayhawkers right proud.




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