We got the Froghorns! (Love ya, TCU.)
We got a former national champion, Nuggets icon David Thompson’s alma mater. (Love ya, NC State.)
We got Omaha coming west on I-80 for reasons other than watching a Nebraska football team get absolutely punked by the Buffs again. (Love ya, Creighton.)
We got either Bobby Hurley or Steve Alford. (Love ya, Arizona State. You, too, Nevada.)
We got a Final Four sleeper — love ya, Gonzaga — on one side of the Ball Arena floor with the guy who made the biggest shot in NCAA Tournament history — love ya, Grand Canyon — on the other.
The Zags vs. Bryce Drew, kids.
In Upset City.
Is this gonna be fun, or what?
With all apologies to Houston, Alabama, Kansas and Purdue, Denver was the biggest winner when the 2023 NCAA Tournament bracket came out late Sunday afternoon.
We got something for everybody.
The Big Dance is coming back to Chopper Circle for the first time since 2016, and it’s back with a vengeance.
We got two No. 3 seeds with a championship pedigree (Gonzaga, Baylor). We got two No. 6 seeds with top-shelf resumes and top-shelf fans (Creighton, TCU). We got an 11 seed with blueblood descent (NC State).
We got Gauchos (UC Santa Barbara). We got Antelopes (Grand Canyon). And they’ve got hope.
Wanna know why? Over the past eight first-round games played in Denver, four ended in upsets. In March 2011, just one day alone saw wins here by a 13 seed (Kenneth Faried’s Morehead State), a 12 seed (Richmond) and an 11 seed (Gonzaga). Strange things happen when that One Shining Moment hits a Mile High.
We got storylines up the patootie. We got the highest over-under of any game in the Dance, as the folks at BetOnline.ag have put the over-under on Gonzaga-GCU at 155.5.
We got family. We got a reunion of the Drew brothers, with Scott’s Baylor Bears kicking things off at 11:30 Friday morning against those pesky Gauchos. And Bryce’s GCU Lopes launching the evening session by trying to upset the Zags at 5:30 p.m.
We got the son of former Nuggets star LaPhonso Ellis, Walter Ellis, a 6-5 guard for GCU and a transfer from Bucknell.
We got stars. We got Baylor freshman Keyonte George, arguably the best freshman in the country, a 6-foot-4 rainmaker who dropped 20 on Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse.
We got TCU guard Mike Miles Jr., who might be the best collegiate guard in the country, period. The Big 12’s Preseason Player of the Year backed up the hype by leading the Froghorns — more on that name in a second — to 21 victories, including a massive one over KU in Lawrence.
We can go long with Creighton’s 7-foot-1 center Ryan Kalkbrenner (15.4 points, 6.4 boards per game), or deep with Gonzaga guard Julian Strawthorn, who comes to the Front Range with 72 3-point makes and a 42.6% clip from beyond the arc on his CV.
We got legacies. The aforementioned Zags are 3-1 all-time in Denver since the tourney expanded in 1985. That’s tied for second among NCAA tourney dancers over the last four decades. With a win, Gonzaga can catch Syracuse (4-0) for the most men’s Big Dance wins in the Mile High City in the modern era. With a 2-0 weekend, it’ll pass the Orange.
We got March Malaprops. While breaking down the West region on CBS’ live bracket announcement show, longtime analyst Clark Kellogg double-dribbled once the topic turned to TCU.
“But keep an eye on those Texas Froghorns,” he said. “They are a terrific team. Mike Miles is outstanding in the backcourt. Remember they blew Kansas out in Lawrence earlier in the season. This a very scary team seeded No. 6.”
Darn straight. Yet Kellogg somehow managed to combine “Longhorns,” the nickname for the University of Texas, with TCU’s sobriquet, “the Horned Frogs,” into something viral.
Barely an hour into Bracketville, and the Madness had already arrived.
We got next.
