Madness
Like many Americans, I have temporarily put aside poltical differences to focus on the NCAA basketball tournament.
Unlike many Americans, I am searching for analysis of the women's, not the men's tournament.
In part that's because my preferred school, the University of Georgia, is not in the men's tournament, while its women's team, as always, is in the hunt, seeded sixth but considered dangerously capable of going higher.
But in part it's because the women's college game is more fun to watch from a purist's perspetive. They always block out. They rarely miss layups. They generally hit their free-throws. And their 3-point shooting is usually strategic, not egocentric.
Aside from my attachment to the Lady Dogs, my interest in the women's game goes back to early childhood, when I had several aunts who played small-town high school basketball down in Haralson County, Georgia. One year I attended a regional championship game with my Aunt Sylvia, who spent the entire 48 minutes screaming at the refs to call "3 seconds in the lane" and other technically accurate but rare penalties. I learned then that women in many respects took the game more seriously than men.
So I'll watch the men's tournament, but will reserve my real passion for the women's game, where all the old virtues of basketball, with few of the new moneyed vices, live on.
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