The whole international pandemic thing that’s going down forced the 2020 March Madness to be cancelled. Or so you thought.
The NCAA is skipping this year’s tournament at all levels, but /r/CollegeBasketball has sponsored its own alternative Men’s Division I tournament: Reddit March Madness. Streamed exclusively on YouTube and executed with a college basketball video game from almost 15 years ago, this year’s March Madness is sure to be unpredictable and full of really dumb turnovers.
Nothing But Nylon is providing the exclusive* coverage of the event from the bedroom of our headquarters. Don’t miss any of the real* quotes and bone-breaking analysis that you’ll only find here because of how exclusive* this content is.
* = this means you can’t sue me
Reddit March Madness First Round – 12 Akron 90, 5 Ohio State 85
The last time Ohio State was upset in the first round of the Big Dance, it was at the hands of a fellow Buckeye state side: Dayton. This time, another in-state foes had its way with Ohio State hearts: Akron.
In likely one of the greatest achievements in Zips history, Akron pulled away in final minute of the game to secure a 90-85 upset of the No. 5 seeded Buckeyes.
The Zips couldn’t have done it without Xeyrius Williams, which isn’t a randomly-generated AI name but the name of an actual player on the Akron roster. His 19 points and 10 rebounds prompted to me to ask him if he was “Xeyrius-ly” excited with how he played tonight.
“Fuck off,” Williams said.
His head coach and adult embryo John Groce said his team couldn’t have advanced without the performance from Williams, but made sure to mention other players on his team, too.
“Xeyrius Williams has a great name, but it’s arguably not even the best on our team,” Groce explained. “We got a guy named Ali Ali. We have another dude named Channel. One guy’s last name is Cheese. The name ‘Enrique Freeman’ does not sound correct. I’m still not sure how to pronounce Maishe Dailey. And the best might be LePear Toles, which again, is the real name of a player on my team. He’s a sophomore guard from Canton. I’m not making this up.”
The loss ends a rocky season for Ohio State, which saw it rise all the way to the top of college basketball halfway through the year before tumbling during a skid in January. But, the Buckeyes turned it around in the later stages of the regular season and seemed to be picking up some steam.
“I felt like we had been playing better lately, but obviously that didn’t carry over to tonight,” said head coach Chris Holtmann after bullying me into giving him my lunch money. “Akron brought it. We didn’t.”
For Andre and Kaleb Wesson, it was likely the final game the brothers will play with one another, a bitter moment for them but positive moment for my mother, who has trouble telling them apart even though they don’t look very similar.
“Which one is the bigger one again?” she said.
Akron will play No. 4 seed Oregon in the second round. Be sure to follow along with Nothing But Nylon’s comprehensively exclusive* coverage of the 2020 Reddit March Madness.
