What Might Have Been: SI's Pat Forde With His Take on 2020 NCAA Tournament
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — No college basketball in March is about as bad as it gets from a sports standpoint, but Sports Illustrates Pat Forde did his best to let us know in his mind how it would have all played out.
He had Kansas winning it all, much to the chagrin of NCAA compliance investigators and every fan in the country who roots for a clean program. Forde broke down his bracket based on the final projections before the event got shut down.
He had Indiana losing in the first round to Houston and only two Big Ten teams Michigan State and Wisconsin — making the Sweet Sixteen. Only Michigan State made the Final Four.
Here's what he said about the Kansas win:
If they had played the thing, the ending would have been Peak 21st Century College Basketball:
Kansas defeats Gonzaga for the men's NCAA tournament championship on a tip-in by Silvio De Sousa, while NCAA Enforcement reps (and much of the rest of the nation) tries not to hurl.
Instead of putting on the NCAA-licensed championship gear postgame, the Jayhawks are given hats and T-shirts that read, “Beat The Posse.” Snoop Dogg appears courtside with a money cannon. Bill Self ascends the Werner Ladder to cut the last strand of Mercedes-Benz Stadium net, then defers all investigation-related questions to his attorneys.
And somewhere in New England, T.J. Gassnola smiles and dashes off a text to Self: “In my mind, it’s KU, Bill Self. Everyone else fall into line.” Ah, what could have been.
That postgame scenario may stray into the fanciful, but two elements of what’s above are serious: Kansas was the best team of the 2019-20 season and most of the country would have been rooting against the Jayhawks, who are beak-deep in the NCAA crime-and-punishment process.
Here's the link to the COMPLETE STORY.
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