OBSERVATION: March Madness is the best time of year if you are a sports fan, and this year’s ‘Madness’ proved it.

REACTION: This tournament had everything! A 16 ( FDU) beating a 1, (Purdue), which has only happened once before, when UMBC beat Virginia, good for the little guy! The tourney had other upsets, K State over Kentucky, Duke got slapped in round 2, Princeton made a run! It was crazy, everythubg you want, ‘The Madness’ to be!

OBSERVATION: It’s time to REALLY start taking, ‘The U’, seriously moving forward.

REACTION: Coach Jim Larranaga showed again why he’s just a hell of a coach. He, not only, took his team to back to back Elite 8s and their first ever Final Four, but, it was the way he did it.

He adjusted!

Starting against Indiana in Round 2, Larranaga began a Master Class of Cause and Effects: How Adjustments can take away an opponent’s top scorer or playermaker. Indiana, Houston, Texas, all fell victim to subtle adjustments. Wow. The ACC is no longer just UVA, UNC and Duke, slide The U up on that top line for a long time to come. Watching battles in the ACC with Harrison is going to be awesome!!!

OBSERVATION: The trash talking is unnecessary.

REACTION: I’m sad to admit, I’m getting older, I turned 41 during March Madness. But, I miss when team sports were less about the individual and more about the team. The trash talking on both sides of the women’s championship was unnecessary on both sides, even if both didn’t have a problem with the other doing it. Caitlin Clark started it, albeit at her own bench, Angel Reese took it way too far by folliwing Clark around the court when the game was ending. The two should have just shook hands and be done with it.

Then, for LSU’s Angel Reese to say, ‘we put women’s basketball on the map’. Please. Ms Reese is probably too young for a VCR, DVRs are becoming obsolete….so, she youtube Pat Summit, followed by Tennessee vs UCONN, then UCONN Women’s basketball dynasty, those folks took the NCAA Women’s Tournament from a lower right corner box score on D12 to the big draw it has become today with ESPN’s wall to wall coverage.

Social media and the amount of access we have to these players and they have allows them to push unnecessary narratives. Be classy in defeat, but especially in victory, what example are you setting otherwise.

Final thought: I am going to miss the bell out of Jim Nantz in March. He isnt retiring completely from broadcasting but he’s the voice of March Madness and has been for as I can remember, it’s going to be different next season not hearing him call games. He ended last night with ‘I’m not ttying to capitalize on ‘Hello Friends’, (his signature intro, which started as a tribute to his Dad), ‘Thank you all, for being my friend’, You are most welcome, my friend.