Ladies And Gentlemen, Start Your Brackets

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Dave Broberg/Hemera

 

Another Selection Sunday has come and gone. Lots of grown men got together, put on suits, stared into cameras and broke down the handy work that some other guys in suits produced from the conference room of an Indianapolis Hilton Garden Inn.

But at last, after all the “eye tests” were conducted and “bodies of work” had been examined, we got our bracket. As is tradition, CBS carries the Selection Show and I watch with baited breath. As a Virginia fan I’ve had a few sweats during the selection show (including the 2000 tournament, where UVa being left out still has to be the biggest screw job in tourney history) but for the most part it’s either been obviously in (unfortunately, not too often until Tony Bennett showed up) or obviously out (Dave Leitao, ladies and gentlemen).

An Ode To College Basketball

 

College Hoops Collage
Some of the faces of college basketball. Photo art by Taylor Adkins

When a college basketball season ends, a trophy is given to the team who survived five months of basketball followed by three weeks of March Madness, while a losing team wipes away some tears and trudges back to their locker room, as a gentle confetti storm in the color of their opponents jerseys falls from the rafters, sticking to their sweaty and exhausted bodies.