Got your winning bracket filled out for the NCAA basketball tournament? Here is why I’m boycotting March Madness this year. Or, to put it more bluntly: Some lines we do not cross.
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A few years ago when Air Force by some miracle made its way into the NCAA tournament’s first round at the (then) Pepsi Center (now renamed “Ball Arena”), I snagged some reasonably-priced tickets (read: nosebleed seats) and made my way down the 16th Street mall from my (then) workplace up by the State Capitol to watch. Now, post-pandemic, I almost never venture downtown, not even to see Gonzaga slay some hapless early-round foe. But there’s a different reason why I’m not even filling out a bracket for the tournament this year.
The background story is here. In a nutshell, I’ll not support – even indirectly – an accessory to murder. Not even one who plays basketball for the #1 ranked college hoops program in the country, and who is likely to be the overall #1 pick in the next NBA draft. Oh, and just so you know, Brandon Miller? I’m boycotting you once you turn pro too.
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I leave it to you, gentle readers, to educate yourself on the details of the above story. Suffice it to say, this is not an isolated problem, either for elite basketball players, or for young men out packing heat. Case in point: A few weeks ago after an NBA game here in Denver against the hometown Nuggets, Memphis Grizzlies all-star point guard Ja Morant went from Ball Arena over to Shotgun Willies – a strip club – and flashed a firearm during an altercation after the show. Now given the twin facts that the incident was captured on security camera footage and that carrying such a weapon onto a team airplane headed to an away game – both clearly violate team and league rules – Morant was busted.
Afterwards, he entered a treatment facility to help him deal with his demons. Accordingly, the league suspended him for 8 games. Which, let it be noted for the record, is 8 games more than Brandon Miller was suspended for actually supplying the gun that was used by his friend and teammate in the murder of a University of Alabama student in Tuscaloosa back in January. But hey, who’s counting, right? Easy come, easy go? Boys just wanna have fun? I GUESS.
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Bottom line, I wish Drew Timme and the Zags all the best as they pursue college hoops immortality this weekend in Denver, and in the coming weeks as the tournament wends its way to the Final Four in Houston. And I wish all of you who are filling out March Madness brackets well too. Your odds of perfection are exactly 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 – yes, I googled it. Hey, a guy can dream, right? But my odds of buying a ticket to watch anyone play college basketball in this year’s tournament, at Ball Arena or anywhere else, are – and will remain – exactly zero. The voice of Darius Miles’ victim calling out from beyond the grave demands of me no less. Because, folks, there are some lines we just do not cross. And you can quote me on that too. Or, to quote that other immortal Crimson Tide alum, Forrest Gump, “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”