Three Guys in a Basement

1. Massachusetts vs. 5. Indiana

Well, here is a very difficult game.  Not difficult because Massachusetts and Indiana match up so well against each other, but because each state is very lame as it turns out.  Massachusetts happens to be an over-rated 1-seed, and unfortunately Indiana brings very little to the table also.

In a surprising twist, Massachusetts’ shift consists of Leonardo Dicaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson, and Martin Sheen.  Unfortunately, besides this awesome song which will be included on future tailgate mixes, they don’t really bring much in the term of sports to the table:

 Indiana, on the other side, coaxes Bobby Knight out of retirement for a strategy to upset the 1-seed.  He starts by an inspiring speech to get the team motivated, but gets confused and thinks that Massachusetts is actually Purdue: (NSFW audio)

Speaking of Purdue, the state of Indiana gets major points for having the mid-major school with the best palindrome of any other school with 5 or more initials.  That’s right: IUPUI – Indiana University Purdue University of Indianapolis.  Here at tgiab, palindromes are just about our favorite things, behind prime numbers.  In a horrible twist of fate, Massachusetts has the advantage there, because Massachusetts has 13 letters in its name, obviously a prime number.  Massachusetts gets favorable calls from the referees all game, which drives Bobby Knight crazy.

After this latest incident, Bobby is ejected from the game and Indiana has to forfeit.  Massachusetts wins.  This makes Knight go crazy once again in the post-game news conference, when for some reason he is being interviewed by a Volkswagen.

2. Oregon vs. 11. Quebec

While this matchup is far less intriguing in terms of youtube clips, it is far more intriguing in terms of Canadian-ness.  In one corner, we have Quebec, which is actually part of Canada.  In the other corner, we have Oregon, which Stephen Colbert calls “California’s Canada.”  So it’s a tie after round 1. 

Now we look to Wikipedia, and find that the list of former sports teams in Quebec is much longer than the list of current sports teams.  On top of that, most of the teams have left Quebec for the US, which makes me think that these teams want to get the heck out of Canada.  However, Oregon is not without its own discontent of people wanting to leave.  In fact, there are a group of secessionists in Oregon that want to found the state of Jefferson. I’m not sure why anyone would ever want to leave the state, but I guess I can understand wanting out of southern Oregon.  Once again, the two are even at this point, with Oregon holding the momentum because the state of Jefferson has nothing to do with sports.

Now we have to look at some sports information, and this is where Oregon pulls away with its sports marketing ability.  With the University of Oregon taking Heisman hype to an all new level several years ago, they get Joey Harrington to go to NYC and take advantage of the east coast media to promote the state.  The next step was to talk to Oregon Duck and Minnesota Viking football star, Ahmad Rashad, to talk about how great the state is on his TV show, NBA Inside Stuff.  Quebec is unable to follow in the steps of its neighbor province to the west, Alberta, and falls to Oregon in a blitz media campaign funded by Nike founder and Oregon native Phil Knight.

Filed under: NCAA/State Tourney