Sidelines
NCAA again inflicted
with MadnessREMEMBER those sunny, innocent, wide-eyed days? That long ago time when you thought anything was possible? Remember that age when you still believed in the good of humanity? Remember last Sunday before 2 p.m.?
Easy, easy. Hawaii isn't the only one reeling from a selection slap in the face. And, when you look at it, theirs isn't even the worst in that bracket, not even close. There is a prevailing sentiment nationwide that perhaps the Selection Committee spent their entire time holed up in that secret smoke-filled back room practicing Bobby Knight impersonations in anticipation of "A Season on the Brink."
(All together now: "Playing MY game is what got you here!")
After all, the rest of us know that Pittsburgh is not in the South or West and Sacramento is not in the Midwest or South and Chicago might look almost East, to those of us in Hawaii. But there is no way that St. Louis, "the Gateway to the West," is in the East. I realize that in the tournament, first-round sites traditionally have never really been exactly geographically accurate. But didn't these guys at least have a globe or something?
Perhaps this is when they made WAC commissioner Karl Benson leave the room.
And then came the seedings, creating a sea of Rodney Dangerfields. Every year they do something absolutely inexplicable, and this year they did about nine things. This is part of what makes this impossible puzzle so exciting, and the world is outraged, as usual.
So no, Hawaii's seed isn't even questionable in the grand scheme of things; in fact, it could have been worse. We can even say the committee smiled on the 'Bows, sending them to a familiar city, a WAC city. There are more than a dozen Golden Corrals in the Dallas metro area -- including four in Dallas proper, two in Fort Worth, two in a place called Grand Prairie and one each in Irving, Arlington, Richardson, The Colony, and even in beautiful downtown Waxahachie. Benson had done his work well.
All the luck you can eat. And with that bracket, they're going back for seconds and thirds.
We said the Cinderella days were over, but of course it turns out that was just crazy talk. You should just ask Gonzaga about that. Once an underdog, always an underdog. It takes a long, long, long time of continued success before they'll let you trade in that pumpkin. And so the Rainbows saddle up the old orange express and ride again.
Bring on the singing mice.
No, this route isn't easy, but perhaps that's best. Any chance of overconfidence at having "arrived" was cracked away by the harsh reality of a No. 10 seed, with Oklahoma waiting in the wings. Brutal. But Hawaii has lost only to teams it should have beaten, and so maybe Xavier is just what the doctor ordered.
But really, I have to defer to the selection show itself to explain it all, to the expert analysis offered by CBS' Jim Nantz and Billy Packer.
NANTZ: Billy, in this matchup, Xavier takes on 10-seed Hawaii.
PACKER: Uh ... yeah.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com