This was an exceptional year for college basketball, in the sense that you had to be an exceptional obsessive just to enjoy an average game. The wonderful championship battle between Louisville and Michigan was a happy fluke, a last-ditch saving grace for a season when scoring dipped to levels not seen since 1952, an era of short shorts and underhand free throws when there was no shot clock and no 3-pointer.* Overall field goal percentage hit its lowest point since 1964, and there has never been a worse year for 3-point shooting. Somehow, the game stopped being fun.
*If you're curious about what gave scoring a boost the next season, it was a rule change that prohibited teams from opting out of free throws if they preferred to take the ball at half court.
I spent about five hours on the highway this weekend, and before we get to the college basketball–related epiphanies for this week, I have three driving-related epiphanies:
1. In my mind, the worst breach of highway etiquette is when a driver in the left lane travels at the exact same (slow) speed as the driver in the right lane, clogging the highway and making it impossible for anyone to pass. It's selfish, stupid, and beyond infuriating. I used to deal with this problem by stewing in anger and shouting a few obscenities inside the safety of my car. Not effective. Eventually, I began tailgating in an effort to show that I hated the driver and would like to pass. More effective, but sometimes they'd become obstinate and refuse to move. But now, my evolution is complete, because I've reached a point in life where I just drive up, wait a few seconds to make sure I'm not being an impatient douche, and then hit the horn at reasonable intervals until they move. And the crazy part? It works, and I'm a lot less angry. I just sail by while the offender glowers at me from the slowpoke lane where he belongs. I'm pretty sure this new Zen-like approach contains the seeds of a great motivational book.
2. Things can get really, really odd when you're alone in a car. I once had a roommate in New York who told me he was looking forward to visiting his family in Kansas City for a holiday so he could "get in the car and just get weird." I knew exactly what he meant. And I'm not talking weird in any kind of perverse way. I'm talking, like, singing freestyle blues songs about highway signs. I'm talking about giving fake interviews in foreign accents. I'm talking about carrying on one-sided conversations with other drivers. Just letting the brain roam where it will, which is always some place bizarre. If there was a TV show that was just footage of people who thought they were alone in a car, it would be a smash hit. And if aliens ever considered invading, but that show was the only thing they watched ahead of time, they'd immediately cancel their plans, since we are clearly a planet of psychopaths.
3. If someone is exhibiting "dickish" behavior on the road, there is a 95 percent chance that he will be driving a pickup truck. Pickup trucks are the new 18-wheelers, and 18-wheelers are the new sports cars. I know a lot of good people who own pickup trucks, including my father, so please don't think I'm stereotyping. This is just a scientific conclusion culled from years of observation; among the thriving group of respectable pickup truckers, there is a group of renegade road terrorists. And if you bike? God help you, because then it goes up to 100 percent. Pickup truck people hate bikers and love to buzz them or scream out the window as they pass. Someday, I'm going to bike past a pickup trucker stopped for speeding, and I'm going to get my revenge by mocking them on the fly. And on that day, the driver will probably be my father. Sorry, Dad.
On to the hoops! Here's what we learned from the past week:
On Tuesday night, Michigan State and Illinois played a basketball game, and the score was 42-41.
That was not the score at halftime. That was not the score after a meteor hit Assembly Hall in Champaign, stopping play and killing hundreds. That was not the score when Tom Izzo went mad, took off his clothes, and ran across the court quoting scripture until his wife chased him down and gave him a mysterious injection, prompting Illinois to cancel the game out of pity.
That was the final score. Two Division I teams that will both make the NCAA tournament were scarcely able to crack the 40-point barrier. And if you're curious about who won, the correct answer is: nobody.
