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 – 8 Saint Mary’s 96, 9 Houston 93
Saint Mary’s held a commanding lead for much of the opening half, but late in the first set of 20 minutes, Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson had an important discussion with an assistant.
“He was telling me about this thing, offense I think I remember he called it,” Sampson recalled. “Anyway, he was talking about this offense thing, going on and on about working for good shots, ball movement, attacking the rim, what have you. It sounded odd to me, but we were down quite a bit. I didn’t know what else to try.”
The Cougars went on a big run, clawing back into the game and remaining in it until the very end. But unfortunately, the Gaels heard about the concept of offense long ago.
It is believed that Saint Mary’s head coach Randy Bennett was one of the men frozen during the Ice Age period. When he was thawed and brought back to life in 1989 by Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan, he put into practice the idea of putting the ball into the basket as many times as possible during a basketball game. Eventually, he found himself in Moraga with a shot at a new life, and now his team is marching on to the second round, 96-93.
“Me proud of players. Me proud of fight,” Bennett grunted. “Us score points. Crowd go boom. Happy, happy.”
Jordan Ford, who had 17 points and 10 assists to cap off a double-double, and Tanner Krebs, who scored a game-high 38 on 13-of-21 shooting from the field with six triples, led Bennett’s offensive attack.
It has been a great season for Ford, who cemented himself as one of the best guards in the country this season. I asked him if he felt ready to fill the shoes of past South Gonzaga greats.
“We aren’t South Gonzaga,” Ford insisted incorrectly. “We’re Saint Mary’s. We’re our own thing. They don’t own us. We beat them sometimes!”
In the losing effort, two Cougars put up double-doubles – DeJon “Big Bite” Jarreau and Fabian White – and Quentin Grimes had 28 points of his own. It wasn’t enough, though.
“Fuck, I’m hungry,” Big Bite said, sharpening his fangs.
Saint Mary’s will challenge the winner of No. 1 seed Kansas and No. 16 seed North Carolina Central (Friday at 9:30 p.m. EST). Be sure to follow along with Nothing But Nylon’s comprehensively exclusive* coverage of the 2020 Reddit March Madness.
