Of the 68, four remain. Of my 31, two remain.

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament advances to Round #6, the Final Four.

Four teams remain standing of the starting sixty-eight: Michigan State, Duke, Kentucky and Wisconsin. Among them, there are two of my chosen thirty-one: Michigan State and Wisconsin.

On Saturday evening, April 4, 2015, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Michigan State University Spartans from East Lansing, Michigan (“Green and White. . . . Fight! Fight! Rah! Team, Fight! Victory for MSU!”) will take the court against the Duke University Blue Devils from Durham, North Carolina (“Fight! Blue Devils, Fight! Blue and White”). Later that night, the University of Kentucky Wildcats from Lexington, Kentucky (“On, On, Blue and White, Kentucky Fight”) will face the University of Wisconsin Badgers from Madison, Wisconsin (“On, Wisconsin! Red and White. Fight! Fellows! – fight, fight, fight!”).

These are all good teams from great schools with winning programs in sports and academics and equally vigorous fight songs.

Prognostications are difficult but observations are available.

Two of the surviving four hale from my alma mater’s conference: Michigan State and Wisconsin are from the Big Ten. This is the third straight year that one conference has placed two teams in the Final Four (Kentucky and Florida from the Southeastern Conference in 2014 and Louisville and Syracuse from the Big East in 2013), but I am not aware that any conference has ever had two of its teams advance to play each other in the final National Championship game. For this reason, I read the nets to indicate that both Big Ten teams may not advance.

Two of the surviving teams have the same school colors: Blue and White adorn Kentucky from the Southeastern Conference and Duke from the Atlantic Coast Conference. For similarly garbed squads to race in streaks across the floor would wreck havoc to those watching, announcing and applauding WHO?? For this reason, the baskets tilt to indicate both teams of the blue and white may not align each against the other for the Tournament Finish.

So, if both Michigan State and Wisconsin do not advance and both Kentucky and Duke do not advance, who do advance? And if they both each don’t do that, who does advance? That is exactly the question and precisely why it is called March Madness.

You know, I think every round is better than the one before.

And each game is better than the last.

How can that be?

Must be

March

Madness

And the Big Dance!

Grandpa Jim