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 – 7 Michigan 68, 10 Florida 59
When the Almighty opened up the heavens and reportedly gave Moses the set of biblical principles that the three Abrahamic religions based their belief systems upon, he provided the prophet with the Ten Commandments.
For centuries upon centuries, man has lived understanding that those Ten Commandments are the most basic and important principles to acknowledge. But, an amendment was famously made in 2015, forming the 11th Commandment.
God and Satan, who appears on earth under the alias “Mark Emmert,” sat down five years ago to discuss the future of heaven and hell, as well as this indefinite purgatory of life that all mortal beings are sentenced to.
A key issue for Satan was to bring hell above ground, something God wasn’t willing to allow. Until they settled on a compromise: an annual Michigan-Florida sporting event.
“I just figured, if you’re trying to create a hell on Earth, what would be the easiest way to do it?” Satan said. “It didn’t take long for Michigan and Florida to come to mind. Putting them together, on the same field or court, at least once every calendar year in meaningful games, surely it would allow some amount of a realistic hell on the planet.”
God relented, understanding that anyone who voluntarily supports Michigan or Florida is already themselves living in a hell that no righteous being would willingly accept. Thus, the 11th Commandment was born, and we’re stuck having to watch Michigan and Florida even play in a fucking video game tournament.
“I left for a reason,” said former Michigan head coach John Beilein, who left to coach a failing tee-ball team after last season, which included a tournament meeting with the Gators. “I saw the writing on the wall. It said, in blood, ‘FLORIDA IS FOREVER.’ I never came back to the office again.”
Michigan head coach Juwan Howard has been left to pick up the pieces.
“Help me, I’m scared,” Michigan head coach Juwan Howard begged, getting on his knees and pulling on my shirt as the feeling in the room became more awkward. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”
Fortunately for Howard, though, he is through the worst of it. His team knocked off Florida, 68-59, in the first round of Reddit March Madness, moving on to face the winner of No. 2 seed Villanova and No. 15 seed Northern Kentucky (Saturday at 10:30 p.m. EST).
Florida head coach Mike White, the first-ever full-functioning bicep to be hired at a Division I program, was happy to be on the other side of hell.
“We did it, and with minimal casualties,” he said after the game. “Please, God, let 2021 be another sport’s problem.”
Be sure to follow along with Nothing But Nylon’s comprehensively exclusive* coverage of the 2020 Reddit March Madness.
