Dancing Partners

March Madness gets a bad rap in Boston. If you listen to WEEI long enough you’ll hear the Big O and company rant and rave about how nobody cares about college hoops around here with the exception of Ted Serandis. WOW. While it is certainly true that Bostonians don’t have a “home team” to root for (sorry Superfans) it’s unfair to say people don’t care about college basketball. In fact, I’d argue that there are lots of guys in Boston who, just like me, look forward to the big dance more than any other sporting event of the year. I’d rather watch the NCAA Tournament than the Super Bowl, World Series and NBA finals combined (assuming none of our teams are in those events). Without a doubt the highlight of the NCAA tournament is the first two days when all 64 teams hit the floor. And it’s not just all the great games that make March Madness so enjoyable. It’s the cast of characters that without fail will become household names over the next few weeks. And while we may not know them by name quite yet here is a cheat sheet on 8 guys to look out for during March Madness.

The Dump Truck – This guy is a spitting image of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. He can be spotted by the fact that he always looks like he is ready to pass out. The announcers will constantly be talking about how the Dump Truck needs to hit the gym and improve his stamina for next season. The Dump Truck really can’t jump at all, but it doesn’t stop him from dominating the paint because he takes it up by himself. Without fail the Dump Truck always has a solid nickname like the “meathook” or something to that effect. This year we have a top flight Dump Truck in Glen Davis from LSU aka “The Baby Faced Assassin.”

The Midget – Another guy who is sure to make his presence felt in the tournament is the Midget point guard with the sweet handle. The Midget point guard usually checks in around 5’ 2”. He could easily be the starting point guard on the And 1 team on ESPN. It’s the same story for every Midget point guard in the country. They come from the inner city and end up playing for some small school in the middle of nowhere because they were way too short to be considered for a scholarship at a Division 1 power. The Midget seems like he’s running a billion miles per hour the entire game and will give the favored team fits. And generally it won’t be until late in the first half when the favorite even starts taking the Midget seriously. By then he'll already have come up with about 9 steals. Earl Boynkins was the prototypical Midget.

The Huge Guy - The Huge Guy shares some characteristics with the Dump Truck. Primarily, they both get winded after two minutes of play and pick up fouls at an alarming rate. However while the Dump Truck usually isn’t taller than 6’5, the Huge Guy is usually a minimum of 7 feet. Another trademark of the Huge Guy is that he is slow as molasses. I usually end up feeling bad for the Huge Guy because once he starts playing against really good teams the fact that he can’t move catches up with him. The tournament is often the first time in the career of the Huge Guy that he can’t dominate just on sheer size. It’s also a pretty good bet that the Huge Guy will get posterized on a dunk right in his grill by a more athletic player.

The Balding Guy - Every year there is some dude who is clearly going bald. The result of their male pattern baldness is that they play with a reckless abandon that only a balding man can understand. His life is now one constant race against the clock before he loses all his hair. These are the guys who dive for loose balls when the ball is already out of bounds. They never miss an opportunity to dive on guys to try and create jump ball situations. They live for taking a charge. The all-time classic Balding Guy was Brian Cardinal from Purdue. Cardinal came fully equipped with knee pads and elbow pads as well as a thinning head of hair.

The One Dimensional White Guy - Or as my colleague Jamie Chisholm likes to say, “the floppy-haired white guy”. It doesn’t matter what you want to call him, every year we get to see a couple of Jimmy Chitwoods. Guys who can flat out shoot the lights out. It seems as if their only responsibility in life is to drain 3’s. It doesn’t matter where they shoot it from because if they’re open it’s going in. Most of these guys grew up in Indiana or Kentucky. Another trait of the One Dimensional White Guy is that they shoot at least 97% from the free throw line. The best way to spot the One Dimensional White Guy is to look for somebody who possibly could have sat next to you in your high school calculus class. The downside of the One Dimensional White guy is that all you have to do is guard them and they turn to stone.

Baby Jordon - No we’re not talking specifically about Harold Minor. But every year there are a few teams where the entire team is one guy. And this guy is virtually impossible to stop. They were the MVP’s of their conference. They can do it all and nobody has ever heard of them, but they’ll be the toast of the town after the first round games. Usually these guys come equipped with nicknames like Harold “the show” Aresenou and have a serious chip on their shoulder trying to prove that they can play with anybody. From a betting perspective these are the guys you want to align yourself with because unlike everybody else on this list they won’t fold under pressure.

Kmart Coach – If you’re like me one of the best parts of the tournament is watching guys who aren’t used to performing on the big stage and seeing how they handle themselves. This includes the coaches. The tournament is the most important event of the year for these guys. If a small conference coach can take his team into the Sweet 16 he is almost assured of being offered a job at a big time school. In a way, the NCAA tournament is one big job interview for these guys. The result is that you have all these small school coaches dolled up in their best Kmart suits trying to coach under the most extreme pressure they’ve ever dealt with. While these guys may seem calm and collected at tip off, brace yourself: if their team is anywhere close in the second half they basically lose their mind. Every year there are a handful of coaches who are so totally overwhelmed by the pressure and bright lights that they perform sideline antics straight out of an insane asylum.

Now if Barstool Sports were a real newspaper and if I were a real journalist, I would have gotten game film from every small school in the conference and figured out which guys were going to fit the role of the descriptions that I just gave. Unfortunately doing all that research would have bankrupted The Stool. So for now you’ll just have to trust me that beginning on March 17th you will be introduced to all the guys that I mentioned in this article. And maybe it’s better that way. After all, part of the beauty of the tournament is that you never know when and where these characters will come from.