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Hoop Chauvinism, Canada Style, With a Side of Pangos

According to an impeccable source — some guy on Twitter who sounded like he knew what he was talking about — NCAA teams with Canadian ballplayers went 14-2 in the opening round of the men’s basketball national Tournament. (Yup, I refuse to recognize the play-in games as a “round”.) And since that was among my key variables for making my not-always-random choices for my bloody-but-unbowed bracket, I’d be doing even better than I have if only I’d had a better grasp/memory of who and where the Canucksters played.

Here’s a collection of quick and distant observations from a Canadian coach in exile in China, with not enough time and nowhere near the Internet fuel to watch more than highlight packages. I does me best, b’ys, but here follow my goofs, brain-cramps, gee whizzes, thinking with my flagpole, random basketball insights and profound apologies, in no special order. This shouldn’t take long. 

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Never Mind Obama’s Bracket: MINE’s Got More Canada!

Happy Spring, lovers of green and newness and absurd levels of attention to American college sports! That’s me, and maybe you, too.) My mind has been mainly not thinking much about Madness south of the border – or way way west of the West Regional, in Dalian, China – what with jobs and obligations of spirit and a sweet little community that thinks March is a heavenuva good time to celebrate New Year’s. (Happy to you!) The Thursday night games of the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament are all in the books, and I accidentally know a couple of results. I also know that I (again) won’t likely be able to watch anything on-line. But I’m in.

The True North, deep and talented.

My bracket is done. (Like yours, it’s likely already wrecked, but I’m not sure yet.) It’s an impulsive, ill-informed, laundry-biased, ancient-loyalty-skewed and tremendously Canuck-friendly set of predictions. I’ll spare you the details, but I do have a shocking winner, a fair slew of upsets, and a quality of analysis you’ll not likely see anywhere else. So let’s get right to it!

In round one, I have mild upsets: Stanford (10) gets through because its players really are students who play great ball (in many sports), and I know nothing about New Mexico except for gorgeous sunsets and the Navajo.

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