let me explain college basketball ..... fdu beats purdue .....

two teams, two baskets, one at either end of the basketball court, upon which the game is played.   there are many rules, few of which are followed.  you yell when the other teams gets away with not following them, and they yell when your team also cheats.

it's the best spectator sport, because know one really knows what is going on, or can cogently explain it.   it is all up to assertion, most of it  not based on any knowledge of the game or adherence to the rules.  the louder, the better.

here's how it works.--  each "home" team defends a basket, "its basket."   the other team brings the ball down to attack the basket, and throws the ball in the air, and if the ball goes through the other's basket, the attacking team gets "points."   then the process is repeated, except that the team which didn't have the ball, now has it.  they get to throw the ball in the air.

do not ask me to explain how "possession of the ball" is obtained.  i played baseball, a logical and quite concise game.  he he he.

and, so on and so forth, and many and varied are the stratagems used to try and get points, some of them very clever and some of them not so clever.  it helps to have players who are tall, skilled, athletic and who play very hard.  on the other hand short, halt and slow dullards don't do you much good, normally speaking.   except if you are very lucky.   given that life is often unfair in the random distribution of such characteristics among the population, the distribution of such attributes among the teams is a bit random.   money helps alleviate this problem for some teams.  a lot of money helps in this, a lot.  (did i say that twice?)

so, fdu beat purdue this evening, a no. 16 seed (normally that's not a harbinger of success) beating a no. 1 seed (normally pretty reliably predictive of success).

shit happens.  that about sums it up.   except it won't.   there will be lots of ink spilled and many learned "dissertations" on why it happened tonight, some tied to donald trump's assertions that the country is going to hell in a hand basket.   but, as for me, i approve the rather simple approach in explaining this odd result.

shit happens.   get used to is.  it is sort of like life.   normally pretty predictable, sometimes no so.  predictable.

john jay @ 03.17.2023