This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Charles Curtis.
The Final Four of men’s college hoops is set. And there’s not a single No. 1 seed in it. No 2s or 3s either. That’s right, we have the all-CHAOS picks in 2023.
And I want anyone who thinks this tournament is a snoozer to change their minds.
I thought about this as I watched Texas go down to Miami on Sunday, thereby torching my last remaining bracket that had the Longhorns winning it all. And as I stared at the Final Four this morning, as I ranked the best possible title games, I realized that this is an all-time great tournament.
Some reasons to convince you:
1. Parity rules. Don’t you just hate when the favorite wins? Well, there’s no favorite here (fine, UConn is, but they were a No. 4 seed!). The No. 1 seeds are long gone. Teams that you didn’t expect to see are still at the top. We love underdog stories, and there are so many here. Parity is the best.
2. Your bracket is torched. This means you can enjoy the rest of the men’s tourney. Or, if you listened to Blake Schuster, you didn’t fill one out and you could enjoy the tourney for real.
3. There are no bluebloods left. You could count the Huskies in that group, but I’m talking about the Dukes, Kentuckys, Kansases, Indianas and UCLAs. Let someone else win a title here.
4. We are guaranteed a game involving a team that’s never won before. You are possibly watching history unfold here, friends.
5. CHAOS IS SO FUN. Self-explanatory.
There you have it. This tourney rules.
Quick Hits: Caitlin Clark WOW … MLB watchability rankings … and more.
— Caitlin Clark had an unreal triple-double in Iowa’s Elite Eight win on Sunday and did the John Cena celebration.
— Our annual rankings of the MLB teams by watchability is here.
— Patrick Beverley hit LeBron with the “too small.” WOW.
— The Giants forgot how many outs there were and confused the A’s.