March Madness is here! Just a different type of madness than we're used to this time of year. Instead of college basketball players fighting for a rebound, we have grandparents fighting over the last roll of toilet paper at Costco. March is supposed to be an exciting month filled with basketball, St. Paddy's Day celebrations, baseball opening day, spring break trips and much more. Not a worldwide pandemic that locks us in our homes for the foreseeable future.
Before continuing: This is not a COVID-19 article. I'll leave that to the medical experts (and all of the self-anointed Facebook medical experts). I do not disagree with the cancellation and postponement of sports. That doesn't mean we all can't still be a little disappointed with the sports void it's left in our lives.
Today, we would be kicking off round 2 of the NCAA basketball tournament. A full slate of games from late morning tip-offs on the east coast to the late evening match-ups out west. There is not a sporting event that brings more excitement and hype. It helps that my Alma mater Michigan State is a perennial contender, but even non-basketball enthusiasts get drawn in to this 3 week event every year. What makes this years cancellation more painful is that MSU was getting hot at the right time, having won five straight games and earning a share of the Big Ten regular season championship. We've also had to prematurely say goodbye to one of the best players in MSU history, Cassius Winston (1,969 points (4th all-time at MSU) and 890 assists (1st all-time at MSU)).
After falling short in the Final Four a season ago, Cassisus came back to MSU for his senior season to get another shot. The Spartans came into the season ranked #1 in the country only to find themselves unranked by early February. They became the fastest team to ever go from preseason No. 1 to unranked. Then Sparty woke up. Over the course of the final month, they went from looking like a bubble team, to being one of the most exciting teams entering the tournament thanks to the leadership of Winston and Tillman, along with the emergence of Rocket Watts and Aaron Henry. Who knows how things would've shaken out in the tourney. They could've lost in the first round or two with how competitive the playing field is nowadays. Or maybe Izzo get's his second NCAA championship. We'll never know. On a positive note, Winston was named a 2nd team All American and 1st team Big Ten player. Xavier Tillman was also a 2nd team All Big Ten award winner. And of course, this team became only Izzo's second team to finish the season with a win!
The NBA and NHL seasons being postponed has no impact on my beloved Pistons and Red Wings teams, whose seasons unofficially had ended a long time ago. If anything, this break helped put them out of their misery. While the Detroit Tigers are once again predicted to be among the worst teams in MLB, the opening day buzz was still kind of there. There's always a few teams that come out of nowhere with a few prospects stepping up and the Tigers have a handful who could emerge but they're still most likely 2-3 years away from being competitive. It's still to be determined on what impact this will have on the NFL and if they will be postponed at all come fall. If anything, the NFL is the only sport that is currently providing any level of excitement with free agency. Or if you're a Lions fan, we get to see what other washed up Patriots players we'll sign or trade for. We also have the draft coming up. Hopefully the Lions don't choke away their 3rd overall pick and draft another TE out of nowhere. With Slay on the move to Philly, it's looking very likely that CB Jeff Okudah from Ohio State will be the guy. Sadly, the Detroit Lions have the most potential of any Detroit sports organization right now. I won't get into why because I'm not ready to get my hopes up yet. We can save that for a future post.
So now what my fellow sports enthusiasts? We can watch highlights, historic game re-runs, documentaries and follow the news but live action will be on the back burner for some time to come. It might be time to finally upgrade to the latest Playstation, Xbox, Sega Genesis, Nintendo Power Glove or whatever the kids are playing these days. Or I could just start a new franchise on Madden 2010. It's definitely way too soon to plan for fantasy football... Maybe this will be a time of self reflection and I can finally work on my autobiography. Maybe we'll all find some new hobbies and interests. Working out at home is an option to stay semi-healthy... Or more likely, we'll all just drink more and watch a lot of Netflix. Interesting times are ahead of us.
Stay safe my friends. We'll get through this.