Thursday, March 17, 2022

Your official NCAA Underdog Watch

 The official NCAA Tournament begins today, no matter what the NCAA wants us to think, and you know what that means, Blobophiles. 

No! Not playing hooky from work to drink beer and watch buckets! Who said THAT?

(Although that will happen, too.)

No, sir. It's time for the Blob to tell you about some of the cool underdog teams in the field, even if most of them will only be around for a day or two.

Ready? Here we go:

* Yale

Yale! The Elis, and also the Bulldogs! Boola-boola! 

Beat Princeton and the Harvards and all those other snooty folks, and they're actual students who actually read books and stuff. How do you not root for that?

* Vermont

The Blob loves him some Catamounts, because who else in America is named the "Catamounts"? No one, that's who. Plus they won their conference championship game by 40 points (OK, so 39), so they're no one to trifle with.

True, they'll probably get smoked by Arkansas in the first round, but then again, maybe not. They've pulled off big upsets before (Syracuse, 2005), so why not again?

* Longwood

Who the hell is Longwood? Where the hell is Longwood?

No one knows, but that's OK, because that's why the Blob is here. Longwood is in Farmville, Va., and it's the Big South champion. Its nickname is the Lancers, and the Lancers are 26-6 and have three guards who average double figures and make a lot of threes. And we all know how important guards are in the NCAA Tournament, especially if they make a lot of threes.

Sure, that probably won't matter against Tennessee, your SEC champion. But then again, it might. Mark this one down as a potential first-round stunner.

* Colgate

What's cool about Colgate, other than the fact people like to make toothpaste jokes about it, is it was founded in 1819, which is a long time ago, and located in Hamilton, N.Y., which is a teeny-tiny village of 4,239 souls. Also, among its alumni are Adam Clayton Powell, Charles Evans Hughes and Andy Rooney.

Andy Rooney! You gotta root for the Colgates now.

Also, this is the third straight year they've made Da Tournament, and they score a bunch of points, and the gurus say teams that score a bunch of points tend to be the teams that pull stunner upsets. So, beware, Wisconsin.

* Delaware

Delaware is located in Delaware (Newark), and its official nickname is the Fightin' Blue Hens, which is awesome as hell. First of all, the Blob loves any team with "Fightin'" in its nickname. Second of all, it makes the Blob wish Coastal Carolina was in the field this year, because its mascot is a rooster (Chauncey the Chanticleer), and who wouldn't want to see a throwdown between a rooster and a Blue Hen?

Also, Delaware is in Da Tournament for the sixth time, the first since 2014, It's never won, and it probably won't win this time against Villanova, but the Fightin' Blue Hens won the Colonial title as a 5 seed, and the last time they played 'Nova, they only lost by eight.

Of course, that was three years ago. And the Fightin's are 0-15 lifetime vs. Villanova. But root for 'em anyway!

* St. Peter's

No list like this would be complete without St. Peter's, because, hey, they're the Peacocks! How do you not love a team called the Peacocks?

They won the Metro Atlantic Conference, these Peacocks, and they're from Jersey City, N.J., and they've been up and down all year, which accounts for their 19-11 record. But their best player is named KC Ndefo, which is fun to say, and when they play Kentucky in the first round, KC Ndefo will be squaring off against UK star Oscar Tshiebwe. 

Ndefo vs. Tshiebwe! Let's hear the broadcast team say that five times really fast.

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