This is serious stuff! It’s not just about deciding a national champion in men’s Division 1 college basketball. It’s about picking the winners of all 64 games beforehand while subtly implying that your fellow selectors are dumber than a bag of hammers.
Special divining techniques come into play during this process. Formulas employing the mathematics available today are of absolutely no value. And neither are the opinions of television commentators, radio talk-show hosts, sports writers, bloggers of various stripes, or randomly roving packs of pet psychics.
The universally damned “Ratings Percentage Index” (RPI) will also not be called upon. Something about taking one-fourth of a team’s winning percentage and adding it to one-half of the opponents’ average winning percentage plus one-fourth of the opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage further muddies already cloudy waters.
What will count in this exercise of peering into the near future will be a heretofore seldom-used prognostication device known as the RVI (Recalled Vibe Index). All you do is mull the names of the two teams squaring off against each other in a particular bracket and allow the vibe of one or the other to assert itself.
Take the Washington State Cougars, for instance. They were the ogres of my youth and would stomp my beloved Idaho Vandals at every opportunity. But times and locales have changed. The thought of Idaho playing in this tournament, while not ludicrous, at least requires a suspension of disbelief.
Now, when I meditate upon WSU, the thoughts conjure up a neighborly vibe. The Palouse country, after all, is only a rebound and outlet pass south of my old stomping grounds of Kellogg, Coeur d’Alene, and Spokane. Their RVI actually allows me to root for them. Oh, what would my grandfather say?
Now, Notre Dame is the opposite side of that coin. I grew up the biggest fan the Irish had west of the Bitterroots. My fanhood would ebb, however, with the passage of time and the acquisition of the USC Trojans in a similar role. It’s not that I now wish them ill, but their RVI, coupled with their 12 vs. 5 match-up against George Mason, has all the makings of an upset. My grandfather would truly have an issue with this one!
The first round game between UNLV and Kent State is a no-brainer RVI-wise. Many of my generation would root for Kent State over just about anybody. Las Vegas gets a couple of points, however, just for providing a shortcut turn-off to Death Valley.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans, who meet the formidable Wisconsin Badgers in the first round, look quite good in the Recalled Vibe Index. Fullerton is, after all, where Leo Fender first began building Telecaster and Stratocaster guitars so that in later years Jimi Hendrix would have something to have his way with.
The mighty Tennessee Volunteers take on the Patriot League champion American University Eagles in their opening matchup. With both vibe inputs driven by hitchhiking fortunes, the index tilts wildly toward the “Vols,” as if they needed any help.
While, in the distant past, thumbing north from Georgia to catch Thelonious Monk at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village among other entertainments, my road buddy and I were treated grandly to a stopover in Knoxville. On the way back, however, we stood shivering outside the Pentagon for most of the night while imploring passersby for a lift back down south. American University, located in Washington D.C., is, justifiably or not, guilty by association.
The index isn’t much help at all where Stanford and Cornell, another first-round game, is concerned. Stanford, a very cool campus, had the first cyclotron for smashing pumpkin atoms and flaunts a rather top-shelf tailgate-party sensibility. Wallace Stegner also taught the likes of Ed Abbey, Ken Kesey, and Larry McMurtry in his writing program there.
And Cornell is where Vladimir Nabokov composed “Lolita” and where Thomas Pynchon and Richard Farina first met. Then there is the beloved Toni Morrison, who would go on to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature after taking a graduate degree from Cornell. RVI-wise, this game is obviously a pick-em.
BYU vs. Texas A&M is also relatively problematical. The Cougars are just down the road and their Fine Arts Museum collection of Maynard Dixon paintings is outstanding. And, of course, there’s their old football rowdy, Jim McMahon, known as, among other slings and arrows, the rebel without a pause.
The Aggies also boast some creative and eccentric alumni: Lyle Lovett, for instance, and his roommate Robert Earl Keen. Sharing off-campus digs at College Station, they wrote “This Old Porch” together. Another instance where the ol’ vibe index doesn’t tilt much either way.
Gonzaga, who takes on Davidson in the first round, almost pegged the ol’ vibe index. It’s hard not to get a good reading when you have Bing Crosby and John Stockton as alumni. The only vibe I got about Davidson is that it’s in North Carolina and north of Charlotte which is north of Pageland, South Carolina, the watermelon capital of the world.
Like I said, this is very serious stuff involving special divining and an almost shamanistic approach. It’s much more than seedings and rankings and out-of-conference schedules. It’s more about becoming one with the process as a whole. It’s about being the ball, and, of course, hoping to high heaven your buddy’s bracket gets busted before your own.
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.