Outside Shots! by Steve Chappel

See ya, February! Good bye and good riddance! Glad to see you gone! Winter in East Tennessee is the worst of all possible inevitable's. Not bitter cold like Minnesota, but certainly cold enough to make outdoor activities, especially driving, uncomfortable at best.

 So now comes March, the gateway to spring, and the advent of that time-honored indoor round ball, hardwood hubbub. And along with it, my perennial nose-in-the-air attitude concerning March Madness, and the sport of basketball in general. I can't tell you what it is that turns me off about basketball. I think it has something to do with the same reason I’m not a big fan of cricket, rugby, chipped beef on toast, or Justin Bieber.
 
But I will be watching the 2016 NCAA Collegiate Basketball Tournament despite my inexplicable prejudice. Why? I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s because everyone I know talks about it. March Madness gets an automatic mention in most every conversation I participate in, or even overhear. My friends and colleagues know the names of all the players and all the coaches to the extent that I often feel like I’m trapped in a foreign country where everyone speaks a different language.
 
Rest assured, I will not be watching tip-off to final buzzer coverage of every game like some folks I know. I won’t be keeping a bracket either! But I will watch specially targeted games for one reason, and one reason only. Peer pressure? Nope! And I suspect it’s for the same reason many others watch who would otherwise never see a basketball game other than their kid’s. It goes something like this...

The year is 1983. The #1 seed Houston Cougars, after two opening losses, have run the table for their final 26 regular season games. Having quickly dispatched Maryland, Memphis State, Villanova, and Louisville, the Cougars take their place on the floor of The Pit for the NCAA Grand Prix of Basketball. Jimmy Valvano’s North Carolina State Wolfpack is a #6 seed with a ho-hum 17-10 record, and now stands opposite the scariest team in college basketball given no chance to win. For the Cougar’s, it’s the icing on the cake, a stellar year for the Lone Star State. At the final buzzer, the biggest upset ever recorded finds NC State 54 – Houston 52.

And how about tiny #15 seed Santa Clara University defeating powerhouse #2 seed Arizona in 1993? Or #15 seed Richmond upsetting #2 seed Syracuse in 1991? And here’s one our neighbors to the north would just as soon like to forget: Texas Western over Kentucky in 1966.

Bottom line: We like to see David defeat Goliath. "Go Mocs."