1-seed Kentucky—Abe: UK is the most dominant team in the tourney, and Abe is historically the most dominant player in PCTI. UK is gigantic, and Abe is a large person. UK looks like they’ll be cutting down the nets come April 6, and I think Abe is poised to have a bounce back year in IIIIII and re-establish his PCTI dominance, as indicated by his passionate electronic mail response to DTOMYS’s initial amp-up correspondence.
1-seed Duke—Pitto: Duke at its best is a high-powered offensive team who is soft defensively and underachieves. Additionally, they are hated by everyone and no one would lose any sleep if they never watched them play basketball again. Maybe that was a tad strong, but you get the idea…this was one of the easiest picks. Also thanks to Coach K for one of my favorite gifs/vids.
1-seed Wisconsin—Smo: Upset Alert! Y’all thought I would put Donley here, but he’s disqualified because he doesn’t have a buzzcut anymore. Above all that, Smo couldn’t look any more like a Bo Ryan Buzzcut guy if he tried! A historically ugly team, this was a match made in heaven as Smo is a historically ugly person. He would be such a bawse on the end of the Wisconsin bench tho, y’all know he would have the best walk-on celebrations...Kaminsky hits a dagger 3, Smo hits the pre-installed hydraulics on his bench seat, pulls some aviators out of his warm-up jacket, and ghost rides the shit out of an imaginary cargo van. Another easy pick here…long live Buzzcut Smo.
2-seed Arizona—BenWilson: I had a hard time placing myself so I went with Zona since I had a pair of Zona bball shorts in high school. Additionally, I forgot where I heard this, but Arizona has been called a lite version of Kentucky due to similar playing styles, and I am an extra lite version of Abe. I’m shorter, I cannot score as well, I’m worse defensively, I’m too streaky, and I don’t play as hard. Arizona seems to acquire a lot of talent but they never play up to their potential and usually are overrated, a notion much in line with the superlatives my PCTI brethren bestowed upon me last year. Now that I write it out, this was a good one for me.
2-seed Gonzaga—Nature Boy Beas: Our resident PacNorth bro had to be paired up with this PacNorth darling of a team. Gonzaga usually has a cute little team ever since they burst onto the scene back in whatever year it was, and if we’re trying to make our group look cute, we’re going to red rover, red rover, send Beas right over into a gaggle of women…instant underwear slushies. The Zags are basically the opposite of Beas. That is, they are fast starters in the regular season and always flame out earlier than usual in the tourney. Beas is at his worst during first sessions, and plays his best in final sessions. It’s all that fresh #nature air he gets to breathe, he’s basically doping IMO.
3-seed Notre Dame—Actor: To be fair I could have placed the Doctor with a large number of the teams here, as he is known to pledge allegiance to a multitude of organizations near and far. So is the life of a celebrity, always got to stay hip to the trends (winning teams) and endorse accordingly. But those Catholic curls on top of that proportionate head of his led me to place him with his Fighting Irish. The Irish have been one of the most devastating offensive teams in the country with the one man show that is Jerian Grant at the controls. Joseph is one of the only guys who can get his own shot and at times he can be his own one man wrecking crew on offense when said shots are falling, as evidenced by holding the record for most points in a single game in PCTI history (30 points, PS I’m not bitter, PPS I think Beas missed two free throws at the end of PCTI5 G4 that would have put him at 31, maybe he makes them if we had any stat keepers/idea where he was at, fun fact of the day). Regardless he’s good at offense and at acting. Luh u JT ;p
3-seed Oklahoma—Big Brent Carney: Carney was one of a handful of guys I had some trouble placing. The obvious choice was Kentucky but I locked into Abe on that one early, so I had to get creative here for BBC. OU is a Big 12 school, and Brent now resides deep in Big 12 country. Their main rival is Texas, whom Brent tweets about on the reg. Their best player’s name is Buddy, and BBC is my buddy even though we’ve never played together in PCTI. OU started 3 lefties in 05-06 and their then coach (Kelvin “I wanna talk to” Sampson) was a lefty. Two of the greatest players in school history (No. 1 career OU scorer Wayman Tisdale and No. 5 Stacey King) were lefties. I think that’s all I’ve got, but will update with an editor’s note if I find some more.
4-seed North Carolina—Eskildsen: Another shorts segway, I think I remember Brian hooping in a pair of UNC shorts in the TRec back in the day so I put him here. Doesn’t hurt that UNC eliminated his Harvard squad from the tourney this year. B-EZ is famous for his steadying influence on the court, but on TV he looked overwhelmed by the bright lights of the tourney and his guys turtled against the mighty Tar Heels in response. Luckily they play in a one school conference so here’s hoping he bounces back next year!
4-seed Louisville—Ahop: Lewisville is known as a stingy defensive team who can be downright hard to watch on offense. Ahop made his mark in college as a 3-and-D guy who could surprise people with his savviness. As his body has started to betray him, so have the laurels that he is known for. The D hasn’t slipped (hehe) much, he can still come at you in spurts (haha), but his once dependable stroke (lol) has betrayed him to the tune of the 2nd worst 3-point percentage in PCTI. But I’ll be damned if he still doesn’t hit that one dagger every year. Modern day Ahop carries a similar reputation to modern day Louisville. Also Harrell has awesome hair, and Ahop had awesome hair at PCTI III.
5-seed West Virginia—DK: Another upset alert! Bet you thought I’d go with WES VIRGINIA here, with his ties to the state and what not, but remember there is no method to my madness. DK was in the same handful as Brent, what a handful this is turning out to be! West Virginia’s signature is the defensive pressure they put on teams from start to finish, as they’re comfortably leading the field in turnovers forced I think. Read that somewhere anyway. But they trap you and pester you and force you to succumb to their style of play. DTOMYS is similar in his defensive approach to PCTI as he tries to get in his opponent’s head early. Straight up calling out Abe last year was a bold strategy at the time, but it proved to be an effective one, as Abe had his worst PCTI. As we’ve come to find out it was due to life getting in the way, but PCTI is life for DK, and so that was just that much more LIFE that got in Abe’s way. Danielle is annoying when he guards you because he whispers sweet nothings to you, and he and Actor are the only two guys who pressure the ball and yell things when their man picks it up. I envision WVU being the same way. I also envision Dan being a big fan of Bob Huggins and wearing short sleeve rain jackets to pay tribute.
5-seed Utah—Sabin: This one was an AND ONE! layup. How could our resident Mormon not ride with the Utes? I hear life is peachy in the big D for our one time infamous villain, so I wanted to give him the added bonus of being completely responsible for the team he’ll put on the court in his return to PCTI. As for our comparison, Sabin is winless in every PCTI since its inception in 2010, and this year marks Utah’s first trip to the NCAA tourney since 2009. That + Mormon = match. On a cooler note, the Utah coach looks like the Undertaker so that’s tight.
6-seed Xavier—McKinney: Don’t want to waste too many words here, but you never know Xavier is in the tournament and then dare I say they “break out” to win a game or two every time. They quietly do their thing and leave like a whisper in the night, similar to our vocally challenged newlywed. I opened my webcam while writing this to make sure McFish wasn’t quietly standing behind me.
7-seed Wichita State—Spotlight: This was the third and final member of the esteemed handful I had some trouble placing. Obviously should have just used the Princeton women’s team here and moved on, but alas here we are. No matter what you want to say about the Shockers, all they do is show up when the SPOTLIGHT is the brightest and win a bunch of ballgames. Maybe they weren’t the most coveted recruits, but they do all the little things to win. That’s what you’re getting with Spotlight. He won’t ever be highly drafted and he’s not flashy, but he’s going to make winning plays for your team no matter what you need him to do. The Shockers are the biggest little guy in the tourney, and Spotlight is the biggest little guy on the PCTI glass.
7-seed Michigan State—Donley: Death, taxes, Izzo in March. Why people continue to doubt this is beyond me. In terms of a comparison, Donley is such a Michigan State player it hurts. Sparty always has that one white dude that starts whose sole mission is to wreck people on both ends of the floor and utilize every foul they have. We have visual evidence of the fouls part (PCTI III picture album), and you can tell a lot about a guy by the way he dresses. Considering I have never seen Donley wearing anything other than the tough gym bro getup (wife beater under a cutoff shirt), it was only (tightly) fitting that he be matched up with the most physical team left in the tourney. Looking forward to seeing what celebration he’s come up with after having had an extra year to brainstorm.
8-seed NC State—Bruiser: This was our “I only have one team left so we’re going to put Bruiser here” match. First off, we’ll miss you this year Bruiser, get well soon, oh wait you never will because you’re having a child. Now that we’ve cleared that up, I think it ended up working out with the Bruise and the Wolfpack *touches dog-shaped hand gesture with buddy doing same hand gesture*. I watched NC State play one game this year and that was their win over Villanova, whom I watched zero times this year and placed in my championship game in my bracket…Jay Wright is just so smooth in those Dove Care+ soap commercials. NC State completely mauled Villanova on the glass in that game, much the same way Bruiser gets the most intimidating rebounds in PCTI. Even though he’s just fourth or something in PCTI rebounding, every board he gets seems to be in a group of people and he just out fights them for it, where in contrast half of my rebounds come when everyone else has started leaking out and I’m too lazy to start running and the ball falls to me. NC State seems to be a pretty physical team like Sparty, so only fitting we had the scariest guy here. Also their coach played at Alabama and coached Alabama for many years, and we all know Bruiser has a hat with a shocking amount of bill bend to prove his fandom to Bama, so that works too.
11-seed UCLA—Wesley: The Brew Hens were one of the last teams selected to the tourney, and their inclusion in the dance was highly controversial. They are the worst team remaining and have been lucky to get as far as they have. Wes has been on the proverbial cut line for PCTI for quite some time now and is always the last pick in the draft, so it was only right to match him up with UCLA. UCLA is a historically strong program, and Wes was once a pretty good basketball player, and now that he’s married he doesn’t have much to live for…so maybe a career renaissance is in the cards for our fearless cellar dweller. I’m on my fourth glass of whiskey lol.
There you have it folks, your 2015 Sweet 16 x PCTI Mashup. Please note that all stats used in this column are probably made up except for BBC’s part, I didn’t want to damage his journalistic credibility with false reporting in case he gets Googled. Also please note that I know next to nothing about college basketball. Are the NBA playoffs here yet?
