The characters and other fun of March Madness

March Madness is underway. For the one or two of you who need the explanation, MM is the trademarked named of the annual NCAA basketball tournament (and is finally able to be applied to the women’s tourney as well). March Madness travels into April, but that’s a whole different story.

For the first time in a while, I actually filled out a bracket this year. I’m having a friendly competition with my friend Jody. No money involved, no prize; just a reason to pay attention to all the games. I’m the “commissioner” of our little competition, so I get all nerdy tracking the games, recording scores and keeping track of our individual wins. At the end of the Round of 64, we were tied with the identical score of 22 (one point for each win). After the Round of 32, I hold a slight cumulative edge at 30-29. In other words, neither one of us is doing well.

But as with most sporting competitions, the athletic contests themselves almost take a back seat to the characters that blossom in the background.

Who doesn’t remember Sister Jean, who became synonymous with the Loyola University Chicago? The nun, who held many professional roles on the campus, including assistant dean and academic advisor, attached herself to the men’s and women’s basketball teams in 1994, according to a university website timeline. She served as academic advisor and worked with student-athletes to keep their grades up and remain athletically eligible. She dubbed herself the “Booster Shooter.” In 1996, she became the official team chaplain for the men’s team.

Sister Jean became a ubiquitous presence at NCAA tournaments and was soon a national treasure. She died last year at the age of 106.

Sister Jean was honored with her own bobblehead. Photo Loyola website

Already this year, the Miami (Ohio) men’s swim team has endeared itself to the nation, as have the student radio broadcasters of High Point University. 

The swimmers made quite a splash (you knew I had to go there) when they stormed the arena aisle to camp out behind the hoop, with the goal of distracting opposing free-throw shooters. In a really tight play-in game, the Speedo-garbed guys jumped up and down and waved their arms to distract the shooter.

The Miami of Ohio swimmers are big supporters of the basketball team.

The distraction was successful in a critical moment and the Redhawks hung on to defeat Southern Methodist University to notch their first-ever NCAA tourney win. They lost to Tennessee by 22 points in the Round of 64, but school history was made.

The boys of water first started expressing their support of the hoopsters in January, according to online reports.

I say the swimmers should get an official assist in the scorebook.

High Point University, described by clueless network broadcasters as a "small Methodist school," was the decided underdog as a 12-seed, going up against No. 5 seed Wisconsin of the Big 10 conference. I’m sure most pundits — and bettors — expected High Point to get blown away, but the plucky Panthers more than held their own against the Badgers. Down by as many as 10 points, the Panthers battled back on the back of some hot three-point shooting and the team won by a point, 83-82, in the last few seconds of the game.

But while the players were doing their job on the court, student broadcasters Jimmy Rosselli and Griffin Wright were doing their thing on the sidelines. As the team made its way down the court in the contest’s waning seconds, the two announcers called the action with professionalism. But when backup Chase Johnston delivered a layup that put their team up by a point, the two young men went nuts and their reaction went viral. They have been interviewed by a variety of media outlets, including Fox News, Sports Illustrated and Yahoo Sports.

Johnston made some personal history with the game-winning layup. It was the first two-point bucket of the season for the three-point specialist.

I’m sure High Point’s victory broke an awful lot of brackets (including my friendly opponent’s).

My favorite image so far is video footage of Prairie View A&M’s Hassane Diallo staring up at Florida’s Olivier Rioux, who measures up at 7’9”. Diallo, who at 6’8” is probably accustomed to being the tallest person in the room, literally cranes his neck to look up at Rioux’s face. In almost comical fashion, Diallo gives Rioux a nearly head-to-toe glance, as if to say, “Is this guy for real?”

Rioux later dunked a ball after barely leaving the floor. It looked like a two-inch vertical jump was all it took.

Betting and other side activities and competitions have branched out from the tourney. Folks will bet on or rank anything, including school mascots.

Sports Illustrated recently published an article ranking the mascots of all of this year’s tourney teams. The. Clemson Tiger was rated the No. 65 mascot (three participating teams were listed in another ranking as having no mascots at all.) Apparently, according to the accompanying blurb, the tiger, for whatever reason, has occupied the mascot basement for several years. 

Iowa’s Herky the Hawk is ranked 54th, with critics thinking he needs to smile more. Villanova’s Will D. Cat is no. 47 and TCU’s Superfrog is no. 21. Missouri’s Truman the Tiger sits at no. 20, with a snarky note to Clemson saying “these are tigers done right.” Ohio State’s Brutus Buckeye is no. 11, while Akron’s Zippy the kangaroo is the bridesmaid at no.2. You can read the article to see what SI thinks is the tourney’s best mascot.

St. John's University's Johnny Thunderbird.

In full disclosure, there are many online mascot rankings, with vastly different results. I’d guess there’s more than a little personal bias in such “rankings.” For example, Yahoo Sports published a list that would make you think the two entities were writing about the proverbial apples and oranges, the differences are so great.

Finally, because this post could go on forever, I’ll share with you a compilation of some of the most unusual names of this year’s players: Solo Ball (UConn), Chandler Bing (Vanderbilt), Ben Humrichous  (Illinois), Michelangelo Oberti (Penn), Penn’s TJ Power, forward, (ha ha! Get it?), Poohpha Warakulnukroh (UCF), Federico Federico (Texas A&M) and Oluwabukola “Bukky” Oboye, Santa Clara.

PA announcers have probably been rehearsing them for days.

Go Chandler!

And go Duke, for the sake of my bracket!