Every time I see Nate Silver—or some other human computer who can slice and dice numbers and use them to diagnose society's ills—I feel like we’ve taken one more step toward the machines becoming sentient. My fears weren’t settled during this weekend’s Elite Eight games, during which CBS kept showing ads for that new Johnny Depp flick where he has his brain downloaded into a computer. Crusty old Harry Reid is right that Silver is "bad most of the time."
Thankfully, no matter how many times you crunch numbers or run models, you couldn't predict the tastefully named Aaron Harrison (two R’s) harpooning Michigan's repeat trip to the Final Four and becoming the first team in history to go from losing to Robert Morris in the first round of the NIT to the Final Four.
The Wildcats are the hottest team left first in the dance, having beaten the genius billionaire libertarian philathropists’ favorite team and following that up by toppling the defending national champ, only to chase it by beating Kate Upton’s favorite team. Kentucky’s Coach Calipari has his team of McDonald’s All-Americans playing great ball at the perfect time.
Kentucky is the opposite of their Final Four match-up: the Wisconsin Badgers. Wisky is your traditional grind-it-out team that will fundamental you to death.
Wisky is used to playing above their talent level, but as we learned from March Madness, year after year, the hot hand always wins. I’m taking Coach Cal.
UConn has just as much of a claim to Cinderella status as Kentucky does.
No one expected UConn, fresh off of probation, to do their best 2011 imitation and follow a scrappy point guard to glory.
The hot-hand UConn is matched up against a Florida team that hasn’t lost since December. Florida has romped through their bracket, beating their opponents by double digits throughout.
The poetic irony is that their last loss was at the hands of this exact UConn team.
For this tweet:
Sorry about busting your bracket @BarackObama... We have room on our bandwagon if you're interested
— UConn Huskies (@UConnHuskies) March 30, 2014
And given my penchant for picking the hot hand, I’m going with the Huskies.
UConn and Kentucky are the hottest teams left and are playing the best ball. UConn was bullying a bigger Sparty while Kentucky has grown comfortable winning in the closing moments. It's a tossup.
Since Kentucky's resume is better, I’m going with Coach Cal and the Wildcats.
