The 2011 NCAA Tournament bracket include Virginia Commonwealth and not Virginia Tech, a decision that many felt did not make a whole lot of sense. One of those people, naturally, was Dick Vitale, and unsurprisingly, he was a bit fired up about it last night. Just for the purposes of context, this rant included the following line in it.
I told you earlier today that I promised to be so good and not to scream and yell. My wife grabbed me when I had gone to church and said, 'Don't make a big scene with the committee, like you do every year.'
Now that we got that out of the way, here's some other stuff Vitale said.
First, Vitale took aim at UAB and VCU, saying this about the Rams.
Coach [Shaka] Smart does a heck of a job, and I love his potential, but I look at their games. They were losing to Northeastern, Georgia State twice, South Florida -- I mean, give me a break! How do you face those kids from Colorado, who beat Kansas State three times, not once. Who beat Texas. Who beat Missouri. I mean, it makes no logic whatsoever!
He then continued the rant in hilarious fashion.
My wife knows diddly about basketball, but if you put her here and said 'Look at Colorado's resume, look at UAB and look at VCU,' it'd be a ... mismatch, man. It would be like a beauty contest with Roseanne Barr walking in versus Scarlett Johansson. No shot, none whatsoever."
We'll ignore the likelihood of Vitale's wife beating Vitale in a bracket contest, because that's how these things tend to go. Anyway, he also specifically referenced Virginia Tech.
VCU or UAB over teams like Colorado and Virginia Tech? My heart goes out for [Malcolm] Delaney and for [Jeff] Allen and for those kids at Virginia Tech. They got a raw deal last year and this year."
And finally...
I can't take it man when I see kids be given a raw deal, and they're getting a raw deal at Virginia Tech and a raw deal at Colorado.
I long for the days when Vitale was arguing passionately for CAA team Drexel instead of the typical big-conference schools.