The Final Four and Detroit's Latest Savior

Once again, I spent much of my weekend at the wonderful world of Buffalo Wild Wings. It seems that for every major athletic event calling attention from television audiences, I happen to be stuck serving wing-hungry guests in a blinding venue of 43 television screens. I missed the Big Dribble event that the Local Organizing Committee put on Friday afternoon in lieu of the Final Four in Detroit, but I'm pretty sure that in the background of handing my guests at table 243 their 24 Honey BBQ wings, the local news was flashing b-roll from the event. Yet, if someone like me who was actually aware of the event didn't pay attention to it, then how would any other student on this campus know about it?

For the most part, I don't think the LOC or the city of Detroit had students like me in mind for these events. Students are not the target demographic for local news media. Neither are Buffalo Wild Wings servers who pay attention to their guests far more than the 43 TV's in their environment. Whew, I can scratch that off my "To Be Guilty For" list.

For being a sports bar server, you'd think I'd also take note of the Final Four Hershey's College All-Star game, featuring the country's best collegiate seniors of the trade. It's got a little more pizzazz than the Big Dribble, and I'm thinking these college seniors can bounce the ball a little better than 12-year-old Jeremiah from Detroit.

But, I didn't notice. I actually had no recollection that the event was even taking place this weekend, nor did I really care. My roommate noticed, but that's probably because these last weekends of her senior year have seemed quite happily empty.

Overall, I missed out on noticing the Big Dribble, the Hershey's All-Star Game, Hoop City, the Final Four Team practices, and Road to the Final Four 5k Run/Walk. Granted, I live all the way in Ann Arbor, known to be its own bubble, but in all honesty, I'm pretty disappointed in myself for not even taking it upon myself to look at local media for this weekend. The Final Four is a major national event, right here in Michigan. However, I find that people my age tend to ignore the little things that perhaps different demographics might care about far more.

Or, maybe it's just me. Maybe I just plain stink at using the media around me. At this point, I'm so Facebooked out, I don't even want to glance at whether Twitter has cancelled my account for not touching it in a month. How will I ever survive in this business?

Let's take a breather here from PR and community cares, and focus now on what we all are focusing in on Detroit for: the games. It's the competition of the year, at least, for this particular season. Now, in sports, everyone seems to have their opinion on who's going how far, who's the best, who will win, who will lose, who's overrated, blah blah blah. For me, I couldn't care less about what everyone thinks. It's allll speculation and to be blunt, nobody can tell the future! I'm a female, but I sure as heck hate gossip, especially about sports, and for that reason exactly, I tend to ignore speculation. I'm a "Give me the score" girl and with that, "throw in some heartfelt stories while you're at it". The end.

So, for purposes of this entry, I mustered up some predictions for this tonight's game I found online because again, I really stink at paying attention to media around me, and working to find out what they are saying only seems natural these days.

-Seth Davis from SI.com says that Michigan will pull an upset. Yes, they may have gotten beat by North Carolina back in December by 35 points, but that was then, and this is now. His argument? Michigan State has a much deeper team. Also, it's "their destiny." Ok. I think he means this in that because the Michigan economy is such a wreck, it only seems natural in the world of sports to have this blue-collared team muster up all they have and win it for their homebase. But still, Seth, you are just another speculater that I love to ignore.

-Dick Hubert and Jay Digger battled it out to give their take of who's going to take the National Championship on ESPN's SportsCenter last night. Hubert took UNC, saying that even though Michigan State will give a great effort, "they're gonna celebrate in Chapel Hill." His argument didn't go much deeper than that. Digger took the opposite road, giving a more respectable argument. He mentioned UNC's offense and Michigan State's potential foul trouble as an issue. He concluded thatUNC just has that better team. Oh, then Hubert gave a little more insight.

Overall, specualtion is key in major events such as these. Many would agree that much of ESPN's content consists of talking heads competing against other talking heads in an argument that will seem pretty useless once the actual event finishes. When I get the on-air opportunity to analyze big games on my own televison shows at WOLV-TV, I often find myself feeling like the hypocrite I am because seriously, do I really think I can tell the future? I usually end up tripping over my own words in the end. My anti-speculation attitude flares up, and my mind starts thinking "huh?" and my mouth starts speaking circles and my arguments start
going
down
hill.
Which is exactly why I stick to the news and feature stories.

Who knows, maybe they will one day invent an award for whoever speculates most accurately. But wait, isn't that what brackets are? Isn't that why March Madness is so popular? Because everyone and anyone can speculate the outcome?

I'm pretty sure that many of your bracket choices have already been upset, I know mine did (and I thought girls who knew nothing of college basketball were supposed to win these brackets...).

We'll just have to see if the Davis and the talking heads called it right. Be sure to catch it at 9:21pm. The Michigan economy will thank you.