The Leap Year of Sports

Every four years the stars align for what is the greatest 7 months span of sports.  For some this equals a time to of unending enjoyment, for others it’s a moment of stress; stress on their friendships, stress on their relationships.  I’m in the former.  I love sports.  At first I was going to attempt making some sort of timeline for everyone to more easily schedule their viewing of the coming months, but that proved too taxing as a lot of these events overlap and happen concurrently. Instead I’ll just give you the general rundown.  So for anyone who loves sports, here’s what you have to look forward to, and for everyone else, here’s what you’ll be hearing about incessantly for the next half year.

 

March Madness

This one’s right around the corner.  Confession, I watch zero college sports unless it has something to do with my alma mater, Manhattan College.  But this little nugget of information makes my next confession that much better.  I always get at least 3rd or better (on average) every time I do an NCAA bracket.  March Madness is pretty much the only non-Jasper collegiate sports I watch every year.  How do I get at least 3rd place without watching a single second during the season?  Well firstly, you have to understand my theory on sports.  The lower the quality of the sporting event, the more predictable that event should be.  Normally that would seem like the reverse, but the exact reason that I don’t watch college sports (because it is of lower quality, also I hate the NCAA as a governing body) is the exact reason statistical analysis can be used to predict it’s outcome so accurately.  When watching the pros, you can’t account for Curry going off and dropping 60 in the Garden, or King James amassing a triple double with 45 points.  There’s more room for anomalies on the pro level.  And as much as I hate the NCAA and everything it represents, I am human, and can’t help but enjoy the entertaining frantic-ness of single elimination sports. Four key stats to look at when filling in your brackets: point differential, points against (good defense usually prevails, unless that first stat is so heavily swayed in one teams direction), leading scorer’s average points per game (with games averaging about 70 points for each team, a leading scorer can sway a game quite heavily, just ask Melo), and rebounds (if any team’s average is 5 rebounds above their opponent’s average consider that game over).

 

NBA Playoffs

Somehow this surprises me every year.  The NBA Playoffs start April 19th.  And yes it doesn’t end till June.  The NBA has the longest playoffs ever.  But that doesn’t make them any less exciting. If you’re not excited to see who the Bulls will inevitably take to game 6 or 7 on the back of a screaming Joakim Noah, then you don’t have a pulse.  On the west you have the old guard of the San Antonio Spurs, who trolled the whole league this season, by not playing well against the top 10 teams all season, only to turn it on as of late and proving they were simply playing possum.  Along with the Spurs, you have everyone trying to be their heir to the thrown.  It’s a neck and neck race between, the Clippers, OKC, and the Warriors.  Any one of those teams could end up in the finals.  Back to the east, the unavoidable matchup between the Pacers and Heat will be a slug fest for the ages.  There’s a lot of bad blood and lack of respect in this one, and I can’t wait to see it play out.  The only thing that could’ve made this playoffs more special, would’ve been the inclusion of a contending New York Knicks. But sadly the Knick’s only drama at this point will be if Melo is sticking around.

 

World Cup 2014 in Brazil

If you know me, you know there’s nothing I get more hyped for than the World Cup.  I would trade all my other sports teams ever winning another championship again, just to see the US win one World Cup.  I’m not too prideful to admit that I would probably tear up if this were to happen.  Just as the streamers get cleaned up off the pinewood, the world’s number one sport will be preparing to begin it’s biggest tournament.  America is pitted against it’s hardest group stage ever.  Most give them no chance, but the poetic justice seems too great for them not to move on (I’m a raging optimist).  They’ll face Ghana, who ousted them last world cup in an overtime victory that the US could’ve and probably should’ve won.  They’ll play Portugal, who owes us a bit of revenge after we eliminated their “Golden” era team from the South Korea/Japan world cup in the group stage.  And finally they’ll face Germany, who kept America from it’s best chance yet at getting to the finals by hand balling a rightful goal 2 world cup’s ago.  This to me plays out way too much like a Shakespearean play for it not to have a dramatic finish.  I look forward to proudly supporting my red, white, and blue.

 

The NFL

Preseason begins August 3rd.  Usually by this point I’m itching and scratching like a heroine addict for anything other than a baseball filled Sportcenter.  However, the World Cup ends July 13th, which really means we have zero down time to figure out our fantasy drafts and to start preparing our expectations for the coming season.  With free agency winding down, and the draft still yet to happen, the NFL will be in the background making noise all summer.  Consider it your space filler for when there’s a slight lull in the frantic 6 months we’re about to embark on.  But also consider it possibly the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back as non sports lovers most likely will have reached their limit by this point.  Bad thing is for them, once the NFL is on, that’ll be another 16 weeks straight of “winter” in sport fanaticism hell.

But hey, I can’t wait for this all to begin.

Also it’s not as universal but obviously the NHL playoffs will be on soon too, along with some big Golf tournaments, and some major tennis grand slams, so any gap you thought you might’ve had to sneak that romantic weekend for two in, definitely doesn’t exist.  Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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