Sometimes in life, nothing feels better than the familiar. So it is with my first official March Madness bet of the season. Phil and I have a mild obsession with the Horizon League...he can't stop backing Gary Waters' Cleveland State Vikings...and I can't stop insisting that front-runner Butler is second to none in the Conference. The bet between Phil and I is as follows:
The Stakes: 5 dollars
The Goal: Choose the Horizon League Champion
The Picks:- Me - Butler Bulldogs or UW Milwaukee Panthers
- Phil - Cleveland St. Vikings, UW Green Bay Phoenix, or Detroit Titans
This is basically last year's bet, with a few of the throw-in teams being different. The principles are still Butler and Cleveland St. Should a team not listed win the Horizon League...nobody wins the money. To entice Phil into the same bet this year, I offered him three teams (as opposed to the two from last year) and my number of teams would remain the same. Then Phil had the audacity to chose #10 seed Detroit as his third team. Detroit is playing Cleveland State tonight. Either way...a brilliant black coach is advancing in the tournament. Either way...Phil is losing one of his teams. It's good to be making bets again. It's GREAT to be making bets that are essentially guarantees. Go Butler.
I want in...not in this bet, but DH, I want to take you on in a $5 bet. I have always been fascinated with the MEAC conference for reasons I will get to below. I will publish what I am looking for and you can confirm, I get my home state schools, Morgan St (basically 2 miles from my house), Coppin St and Maryland Eastern Shore, you get 3 teams (one of which has to be either Delaware St or Florida A&M), meaning you can have SC St and NC A&T or whoever you want. Deal?
ReplyDeleteIn regards to my fascination with the MEAC:
-Having both Morgan St and Coppin St being in my home city of Baltimore has always been something that has made me fond of the conference
-I love that UMD throws these teams a bone and plays them every year...too bad Morgan beat UMD this year...so maybe Maryland will stop doing that
-Maybe I am just plain racist, but I am fascinated on how African American based schools cannot put a great basketball team together. I mean a white as any school like Creighton can somehow put together teams that can compete, but North Carolina A&T can't? I understand that many of the best African American players go and play for bigger programs and that has a lot to do with it, but are you telling me that the white players from the farms of Nebraska are better at basketball then the black players from east coast inner cities...somehow that phenomenon confuses me.
Matt...the MEAC is a total crap-shoot. Predicting the winner of that league is like winning a "numbers" pool during football season...totally random. So of course I'm in.
ReplyDeleteI think you assume that all black players are good, which is a faulty assumption.
"It's GREAT to be making bets that are essentially guarantees."
ReplyDeleteexactly.
my assumption is not that all black players are good, rather they are better than white players (I think Jimmy the Greek got fired over a comment like this...)
ReplyDeleteShoot me an email with your MEAC pics to make it official...man that Abe Lincoln will look good when I am handing it over to the guy at the Checker's counter...can anyone say Big Buford...I can.
Give me a day or two to get you the MEAC picks. That conference tourney doesn't start until March 9th.
ReplyDeleteAre "below average" black players better than "average" white players? We're really opening a can of worms that might limit me later should I get famous.