The Madness

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

I am admittedly not a basketball aficionado. Maybe it’s because I was always terrible at the sport. I always say it’s because I could never find a left-handed basketball.

Yes, my father was a pretty successful basketball coach for a living, spending 25 years at Earle (by the way, shout-out and congrats on the Bulldogs winning the 1A State Championship.

The girls team was also State Runner-up, so well done all!), but I never took to the game.

So, I don’t really watch much of it on TV. I kind of got into it a little back when Michael Jordan was a big deal, but really, I’d rather watch “Space Jam” than an actual game.

Having said that, I go all in on college basketball this time of year. I do indeed suffer from “March Madness” and make an effort to brush up on all the teams so I can fill out my bracket…

See VIEWPOINT, page A6 VIEWPOINT

From page A4

which will inevitably be good and busted — perhaps even by the time you read this. Why? Because I just can’t resist taking my favorite teams too far into the tournament. I mean, Arkansas is in there, and sure, they’re a No. 10 seed, so expectations should not be too high, but I think I’ve got them winning at least a couple of games on most of my brackets. I’m a bracket junkie… I fill them out on ESPN, Yahoo!, and anywhere else I can find (except Twitter. I refuse to participate in that whole experience).

I’ve also got Memphis going pretty far — even to the Final Four in some scenarios. Now, that is admittedly a bit more realistic, as they are having a great season, but you just never know.

My loyalties then lie with the SEC teams… and boy are there a bunch of them this year! In fact, we could definitely see an all-SEC final, with Florida, Auburn, Tennessee and a couple of other real contenders.

And A-State won their 1st round NIT game, so… feel the Madness!!!