Everyone Knows It's the Texas Leghorns

We venture into the Madness quicksand. Heaven help us.

Just give it up, OK?

The best Madness brackets always look better blank. That clean sheet of paper, its lines and dimensions architect-perfect, its possibilities fresh and new. It’s begging you to screw it up. And you always do.

How to do better? Don’t try. You like Kennesaw State? Pick ‘em. You think highly of raging and pillaging and Sven Forkbeard?

Fork what, Doc?

A Viking king who ruled Denmark, Norway, and England during different periods between 986 and 1014. He was the son of Harald Bluetooth, the first Christian king of Denmark, and his mother was Sigrid the Haughty, a powerful Swedish noblewoman.

Oh.

Pick NKU to be the second 16 seed ever to beat a No.1 (Houston) Thursday in Birmingham. Norse (Way) Up.

Why not? I mean, you don’t actually think you’re going to win your office pool, do you?

Read this from the NYTimes, and weep:

Treating each of the 63 games as 50-50 coin flips, the probability of predicting a perfect bracket is about one in 9.2 quintillion.

Tracy Wolfson is about as likely to post up Zach Edey. Wolfson is a 5-2 sideline journo for CBS. Edey is a 7-4 monolithic center for Purdue. Watching Wolfson interview Edey yesterday, I worried she’d break her neck.

As for winning your pool. . . your odds are better on making a hole-in-one on the moon. From Cleves.

Tim Chartier, a mathematician at Davidson College, told the Times, “Bracketology really underscores the unpredictable nature of the human experience. I think it’s why we watch sports. No matter how much we know, no matter how much we study, no matter how much we cheer, we intrinsically know that we have no idea how it’s going to unfold.”

We’re all basically FOS, in other words.

That doesn’t make us any less astute than Clark Kellogg. “Keep an eye on those Texas Froghorns,’’ Clark announced on CBS’ bracket reveal. What a dummy. Everyone knows they’re the Texas Leghorns. Kellogg has Xavier going to the Final Four. If I’m an X fan, I’m not sure how I feel about that.

The CBS selection experts didn’t have a great show. If they were a team, they’d be Virginia, which was the only No. 1 seed ever to lose an opening game in the Madness.

Greg Gumbel couldn’t decide which conference No. 1 seed Houston plays in (the Southwest, of course) and Seth Davis decided Drake would advance to the Sweet 16, but probably as a rapper from Canada.

And then there was that major graphic slip-up that had Gumbel announcing two incorrect teams into the bracket. Howard, as it turns out, is playing two games in the same round!

That was nothing compared to the way he described Alabama, the overall No. 1 seed. The Crimson Tide’s best player, Brandon Miller, allegedly handed a gun to a former teammate, who allegedly gave the gun to another guy, who allegedly murdered a young woman, allegedly. Making us all feel so much better about the wholesome enterprise of college sports.

Gumbel decided the Tide “sidestepped a situation involving criminal activity.’’

Interesting choice of words. Gumbel’s gonna need some knee pads now, for all the apologizing he’ll be doing. He has a 1-in-9.2 quintillion chance of ever becoming mayor of Tuscaloosa.

Meanwhile. . .

• What about the Gaels? A mighty storm is approaching the West Coast. Formed in the Sea of Japan Gael Joe packs 88 mile-an-hour. . .

That’s gale. Gaels are dudes from Ireland.

Or basketball giants at Iona and St. Mary’s. Two Gael teams in the Madness. Has that ever happened?

• How ‘bout Grand Canyon University?

What?

14th seed in the West. I had to look it up. I didn’t wanna pull a Clark.

From the school’s website:

Grand Canyon University is a private Christian university located in Phoenix, Arizona. We are dedicated to helping our students change their lives for the better through education.

Who doesn’t want that? No one, apparently. GCU has 80,000 online students. Wow, is the team virtual, too? Does it practice on Zoom? These guys must really mail it in. How’d they make the Madness? Someone ask Clark.

* Furman returns to the tournament for the first time in 43 years. Good for Andy! After he finally grasped how hard it was to shoot jumpers with a cigar in his hand, the rest was easy.

Because you’re dying to know, Pat Kelsey will be the darling of March. His Charleston guys will make it through the weekend. Xavier will, too, and UK. At some point, Jim Nantz will call the tournament “a tradition unlike any other’’ and be banned forever from Augusta National.

Mick Cronin will pause his weekly cigar smoke with Joe Pesci long enough to get UCLA to the Final 4 and to track down the guy who hassled Hep at the Pac 12 tournament last weekend. Mick will not care about sidestepping a situation involving criminal activity.

The odds of the Texas Froghorns winning it all are roughly 1 in 9.2 quintillion. And someone please get Tracy Wolfson a ladder.

Now, then. . .

THE BEARCATS get some experience in the NIT. How would you rate their year? One Quad 1 win, at UCF, on a buzzer-beater by David DeJulius. Unimpressive beatdown Saturday against a Houston team that played more than 20 minutes without its best player.

Lakhin back next year, you’d think. Maybe Nolley. Skillings and whoever arrives via portal, NIL and signing day. Hello, Big 12.

THE FINAL ROUND at the TPC was Dullsville, as rote and metronomic as the winner. Scottie Scheffler is a great player — only the 3rd to win TPC and the Masters in one 12-month period — but he’s not exactly Phil Mickelson out there.

I watched, though. For, god help me, almost three hours.

It was because of No. 17. I’d watch 17 at Sawgrass if it were the only hole on the PGA Tour. A wee 137 yards, all moated. Seventy-eight feet deep. Wind changing constantly, green mostly sloped toward the pond on every side.

It’s like trying to land a jet in a hot tub.

Which got me to thinking. If you play (commit) golf, what chance would you give yourself of holding the green with your tee shot? Once in 10 times? That would indictate you’re capable of hitting a great shot 10 percent of the time, so, yeah, I think I could do that.

Pros are hitting wedge in there, which helps them with the trajectory demanded. I’d hit 7-iron. You?

How much would the hole grab you by the neck and cause you to change your swing? It’d make me gag every time. I’d very likely short-swing it and either leave it short and wet or push it right and wet.

It’s an easier hole, IMO, than No. 12 at Augusta. Bigger landing surface, wind not as cantankerous. Truth, Mobsters: How might you do?

Golf.com says this about that:

What about for us common folk?

The PGA Tour sought to find out and they camped out on the 17th for an entire day in January to record every shot hit by regular players.

Out of 95 players who came through 17 that day, there were 102 balls hit in the water for an average of 1.07 per player., though that number was a bit inflated by the 10 players who hit three or more balls in the water.

More than half (56 percent) of all shots hit found the water and every group to play through the hole had at least one ball go in the lake.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . The best version of a classic tune. I named my dog after this tune. Crazy Chester. He followed me, I said wait a minute.