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You are about to bet on March Madness. Cancel or Allow?

By Vin, Section College
Posted on Sun Mar 18 2007 at 9:41 PM EST
More on: college basketball, March Madness, NCAA, marketing, commercials (all tags)

CANCEL! CANCEL! CANCEL! I'm not stupid enough to actually bet cash on the tournament since I'm not up on my college bball this year (aside from throwing $50 away on office pools) but I am part of a contest from nbx.com called Battle of the Blogs. Instead of a bracket, they do a contest where you start with 100,000 points and you can bet on each game. Good thing it's not real cash or I'd be selling blood and sperm right now.

I waded slowly into the betting pool, putting down 100 or 500 points on BC over Texas Tech, Louisville over Standford, Michigan State over Marquette, and various other games. Amazingly I went 11-3-1 to begin the contest. However, from Friday to Sunday, it seemed that college basketball was fixed. Against me specifically. I dropped 16 straight bets. 16. You could flip a coin and not do anywhere near as bad.

Second is Georgetown over Boston College. I take the Hoyas and give the 8 points. The Hoyas are up 7 with 18 secs to go when Jonathan Wallace misses 2 free throws. Instead of a win, I get a loss. If he makes 1 out of 2, I get a push. But he can't even make one? Did I mention that Jonathan Wallace is a 87% FT shooter? The words point shaving come to mind.

The third bet that drove me insane is Louisville vs Texas A&M. I have Lousville +2.5. Edgar Sosa takes a 3 point shot he didn't need and then Acie Law makes 2 free throws to put the final differential at 3. Of course, when I'm rooting against the free throw shooter, he makes both.

Betting on college basketball is insane. It's like betting on individual Fantasy Football games. Now I expect that people with better knowledge of college basketball do a little better but how can you bet on games where the final spread can be affected by so many different things. How many over/unders are won/lost because a blowout is happening and the coach decides to put the scrubs in to give them some playing time in an NCAA tournament game? How many spreads are covered or missed because of the decision of the coach whether to foul or not? It's absolutely insane. I'll stick to betting on the NFL from now on. Or maybe the moneyline is the smart bet. Someone let me know.

Chalk it up
Because of last year's tournament, where not a single No. 1 seed and only one No. 2 made it to the Final Four, you just knew that this year would be the Year of the Chalk. Now, we're only at the sweet 16 round but how can you argue against Florida, UNC, Georgetown, Kansas, UCLA, and Memphis? Ohio State looks to be the shakiest No. 1 but North Carolina could be the No. 1 least likely to make it simply because they have Georgetown in their region. Now I know I haven't made a strong case for my betting prowess above but I'd be tempted to take North Carolina, Kansas, and Georgetown against the field for the National Championship. Georgetown needs to focus a little bit more but they certainly have the horses (Hibbert, Green, Wallace) to win it all. Meanwhile North Carolina and Kansas looks too deep and too fast to get beaten before they meet in the Finals. This should be a hell of a second weekend in the tournament.

Which brings me to my next point. For all the hype that we put on the tournament, it certainly was a disappointing opening weekend. After a terrible opening round, things really heated up on Saturday. We got: Ohio State vs Xavier, Texas A&M vs Louisville, Washington State vs Vanderbilt, VCU vs Pittsburgh. All great games that will make the highlight reel during One Shining Moment. Then we were let down again on Sunday. Virginia vs Tennessee was the only decent game on the slate. Maybe it was burnout from 40 hours of tournament watching but the late afternoon Sunday games had me checking to see whether ESPN was showing the Div I Wrestling tournament again. This has to be Billy Packer's fault somehow right?

Awful Announcing
I don't want to get all literary on you guys but have you ever read No Exit? Well my version of No Exit would be Kevin Harlan and Bill Raftery in a locked room. Does Kevin Harlan know he sucks? How can you be one of the most hated announcers in basketball and not know it? Apparently he neither knows nor cares because he just continues with his if I keep screaming then the people will think this play is exciting style of announcing. ("OH A SEDUCTIVE MOVE BY THE SWEAT MOPPER!"). OK Kevin, here's the doctor's bill for making my ears bleed.

And then you have Bill Raftery. I think he might be the absolute worst announcer in sports history. Yes, even worse than Dan Dierdorf. Why does Raftery insist ON putting emphasis on THE most RANDOM words in his analysis? Verne Lundquist is a saint. If I was Verne Lundquist, I'd have punched Bill Raftery by now and just stormed off. Just thinking about how biased Bill Raftery is making my head explode. I didn't realize he was on Florida's payroll.

And now for this commercial break
I can't help it. I'm obsessed with the commercials. I have a love/hate relationship with them. I know people who just leave the room or ignore the commercials but I don't want to miss any of the action and they make the commercials so loud and annoying that I simply can't tune them out. Now I realize that when you watch 8 straight hours of basketball, you're bound to see the same commercials a few times, but don't these companies know that the replay overkill might not be good for their brands? Why isn't there a frequency cap on television commercials? The worst advertisers this year (aka The Applebees Award) and which subsequently I will never patronize if I can help it are:

• Chevrolet ('this is ourrrrr country") - We've been subjected to this since October and it's not getting any better. In fact, we love our country but hate Chevy.
• Mariott ("cool as the other side of the pillow... boom shakalaka") - God, if Stu Scott is getting royalties for this, I quit.
• Coke ("we want to sue Coke Zero") - It was only a matter of time before some advertising dickhead turned the genius of Borat into some cheap ad campaign.
• DiGiorno Pizza - By now, you'd think Dicky V would realize it's not delivery. This ad campaign, like Vitale, needs to be put out to pasture. Or shot. Actually, shoot Billy Packer first.
• State Farm(? - not sure what company, that's how ineffective their ad campaign is) - Why would I go to a camp with Coach Jay instead of Coach K? Well, first, cause I'm thinking Coach Jay won't call me a motherfucking cocksucker when I mess up a play. And also, cause I don't think Coach Jay would come up with a mysterious case of back pain when his team sucks. I'm just saying.

And finally, two random thoughts. First, how high do you think Jared Dudley will go in the WNBA draft? Second, while I don't hate the ad itself, I just have to say that Carlos Mencia is not funny. He is a fat turd that stole Chris Rock's shtick, dumbed it down 1000x, and applied it to Hispanics instead of blacks. Chris Rock is the funniest active comedian today and Carlos Mencia is a derivative retard. I feel better now.

OK, that's it for me folks. More after next weekend. And remember: Tar Heels, Jayhawks, and Hoyas.