Presenting the ‘You Gotta Be Kidding Me’ Team from opening day of March Madness

The Virginia Cavaliers should’ve closed out the Furman Paladins on multiple occasions, but Jalen Slawson, Garrett Hien*, and Co. kept coming. Mostly because the UVA offense has a habit of looking like a lifeless high school team for long stretches and allowed the Paladins back in it.

Regardless of Tony Bennett’s title, no college basketball fan — however casual —trusts UVA during March Madness. Kihei Clark’s brain fart was an all-timer (even if I think his thought process was sound). Virginia has been ousted by a double-digit seed in three of the past four tournaments, and the only time they weren’t, they won it all. Go figure.

*Hien was 100 percent the target of UVA’s fans’ befuddlement.

Watching college hoops after months of conditioning from NBA refs is always a shock to the system. Cheap open-court charges are whistled, continuations are cut short, and traveling is very much a rule.

The offensive foul calls are antithetical to everything the Association stands for, and being bigger, stronger, and faster is negated if you’re out of control. Bigger, stronger, and not-as-poised could describe half of the high seeds I picked to go far, and missed free throws, foul trouble, and plucky underdogs are a constant source of frustration every March.

The Maryland Terrapins big man is the exact kind of unorthodox player this article was designed for.

His nickname is Juju.

Until the cameras zoom in, it looks like he has a mini-Marge Simpson haircut.

He’s in the middle of every paint interaction and yells to yell.

When you’re that noticeable and that demonstrative, you better be pretty damn good, and Juju is no slouch.

Add in a free throw motion that’d make Joakim Noah nervous, and Reese is the kind of player who’s just annoying.

A perennial first-team, All-American “This fucking guy.”

From coach Mitch Henderson to Caden Pierce to Tosan Evbuomwan (pictured), the entire Princeton team had a “You gotta be shitting me” vibe to them. I literally foreshadowed this loss with my refs/rules rant right before Arizona-Princeton tipped.

“Bigger, stronger, and not-as-poised could describe half of the high seeds I picked to go far, and missed free throws, foul trouble, and plucky underdogs are a constant source of frustration every March.”

The only way I could’ve jinxed my bracket worse was pawning my grandpa’s watch to pay for my entry fee.

The Wildcat big men played paddy cake around the perimeter for most of the afternoon, and Courtney Ramey epitomized the team’s lack of composure. He had an off-balance shot swatted late before air balling what would’ve been the game-tying three.

The Tigers didn’t have a lead until 2:04 left in the game, and by that time Arizona’s offense was so out of sorts that the upset was a car accident in slow motion.

One of the trademarks of a Bob Huggins team is an athletic, overconfident guard, and Joe Toussaint (pictured) fits the bill. He stands up every drive, takes heat checks in the middle of a shooting slump, and has been yelled at by Huggy Bear no less than 30,000 times this season.*

As West Virginia and Maryland were trading leads in the second half, Toussaint drew a charge, drew another foul while frenetically trying to break the press, completed an and-1, and missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Whether you had the Terps or the Mountaineers determined if you were yelling “No, no, no, yes!” or “Yes, yes, yes, no!” Toussaint had you screaming one of them.

*As evidenced by Huggins yanking Joe for the last few minutes after he badly missed a pivot, pivot, hook shot amid the team’s second-half meltdown against Maryland.

Even though the Cougars came up short against San Diego State, the Aztecs were never able to get comfortable, and honestly, it didn’t have much to do with Bolon. I simply wanted to bring him up because I thought SDSU was cooked when the telecast flashed a picture of Bolon playing with an eye patch while at Western Liberty University.

Apparently, the seventh-year college basketball player got his eyelid sliced off during a game and toughed it out. I have no idea how the lack of depth perception affected his shot, but there’s a level of intimidation when you step on the court with Steve the Pirate. Maybe he should’ve brought back the patch in the second half.

Anyway, Dalton Bolon is a legend for this.

The latter half of opening day was a little more predictable, right down to Tennessee making everybody who had them advancing nervous. The Volunteers nearly squandered an 18-point second-half lead to the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, playing as confused as Rick Barnes (pictured) looked, and needed free throws to ice the game.

While his team has been bitten by injury, this is deja vu with the UT coach one too many times for me. Every year, the Vols have a nice showing in the SEC against a bunch of athletic teams that are as undisciplined as they are, earn a top-four seed, and waltz into the tournament overconfident and underprepared.

Then we ask ourselves why we fell for it… again. Or maybe you don’t as you’ve stopped giving Barnes do-overs because you’re not a UT apologist. And in that case, good for you.