Thursday, April 3, 2014

Irony in Black and White

Swamped as I've been, I didn't have a chance to do my usual NCAA Tournament bracket predictions this year.  Had I done so, I would have missed on three of the four Final Four candidates, getting only Florida right.  The Gators are easily the best team left in the Tournament, and I expect them to have relatively little trouble with Connecticut in the first semifinal on Saturday evening.

The really intriguing Saturday set-to will be between Kentucky, which seems to have jelled at the right time, and plodding but effective Wisconsin.  It's almost inevitable that this game is going to be sold as "great athletes" (read: blacks) vs. "cerebral players" (read: whites).  Seems to me that I've heard that song before, not to mention seen the movie.  There are two big differences, though: (1) Kentucky is now the black team; (2) very few people seem to be giving Wisconsin a chance, even though they had the objectively better season.  Back in 1966, the conventional wisdom was that an all-black team couldn't hold up to the pressure against a comparable all-white team.  Now, after several decades and more of "white men can't jump" jokes, the C.W. has been turned on its head.  Luckily, the turbulent cultural circumstances that surrounded the Kentucky-Texas Western game have largely dissolved, and the issue of "who's best" will be settled strictly on the court.

2 comments:

Pan Miluś said...

The new episode - "Testing 1,2, 3" - was indead a good one. I didn't seen an interesting Rainbow Dash episode in a long time (In my opinion she become more one-note then Pinkie) so it was plesant supprise... as well suports my friends theory that Rainbow Dash has ADHD (as silly it may sound to some I woudn't be supprise if show writers didn't had such ideas in mind as coming up with the characters)


Being a person with dyslexia I can relate to her in this episode a lot. I love how charming it was that the entire town came together for Rainbow and the message about each person having his indyvidual way to learn things was very good and unique. I wish public schools would take a clue from this particular episode...


I guess the only thing to complain is that... well, it's one of those episode they could easly cut to 11 minutes without missing a bit.

Then agian I did like a lot the long scene when Twilight and Rainbow are just flying and talking as they pasing the clouds... there was something "Real life conversation" about it I enjoy.

Gregory Weagle said...

Well; you can scratch Florida off the list now since UConn upset them. I was originally laughing about the possible farce of an all SEC final; but a #7 VS #8 seed final might actually be more laughable now.

And after losing the rights to the Big East name; an AAC team actually made the final; while no Big East team made it past the round of 32. What a great first year for the new Big East eh? I should have seen the signs of weakness when Seton Hall upset Villanova in the Big East tournament.