Are NCAA Finals Highlights Better Than Animal-on-Treadmill Videos? A Corbin Smith Investigation And Bracket

This feature is technically part of VICE Sports' March Madness coverage.

The annals of college basketball history: there are so many of them, and there is so much in every one. Walk down the halls, open the doors, see the inside of the annals. Look, there's LEW ALCINDOR! Check this annal out, Dave—is that BILL WALTON? Oh my god, Janet, there's a door in the floor. Let's open it up. Hey, look, an annal we didn't see before! It's JAMES WORTHY!

Once, these annals were closed to us. We could not see their myriad historical delights, nor take pleasure in the basketball of the past, eat, sleep, and dream inside of them. But now that the internet exists, the exploits of past NCAA national men's basketball title games are all available, at your fingertips!

But which is the greatest game of basketball, one that stands on the heads and hearts of its inferior victims in comparison? A good way to find out—both philosophically and truthfully, and also from a content-organization, readability, shareability, viralability perspective—is to arrange them in a bracket and compare them binarily.

Unfortunately, a government spy sneaked into my house and stuck a microchip in my right hand when I was making the bracket, and I was controlled, like a Game Boy or a lizard licking a USB port, and forced to pit legitimate NCAA Finals highlights against videos of animals walking on treadmills. It was horrible. They all smelled like sandalwood, and their suits were an unnervingly uniform shade of blue, every thread a perfect rgb(0,0,255). Before they left, they told me I had to finish the article like this or they would kidnap my family and make them live in Rome, where they would be provided with a free hotel and food for life.

I can't let that happen to them. My parents are good Americans who don't like "carby" food. And so we proceed:

No. 1 UNC–Georgetown, 1982

Early versions of Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, and James Worthy met each other on college hoops' most sacred stage in 1982. Ewing, wearing his customary pre-NBA Shame T-Shirt, hears his name over the PA. He is enthusiastic. He delivers high-fives. He seems very excited to play. The game starts, and he proceed to enthusiastically goaltend shots at the rim, over and over.

After doing this like, six times, Ewing stops goaltending shots like it's not illegal, but they continue to haunt you. Why did he think those were good blocks? Brent Musburger comes up with weird excuses that make no sense: "That'll be goaltending! But I'll tell you, he is certainly up around that cylinder!" You start to wonder: People aren't bemused or angry enough about this weird shit. Was it a different normal back then? Did people use to goaltend all the time, to let people know they mean business at the rim? You think. No, I've never seen this before. I am definitely making that up to explain the bizarre thing I am watching.

As you are just beginning to make some breakthroughs, narrowing down truths to explain this bizarre circumstance, Michael Jordan hits a game-winning two-point jump shot. You see that the goaltends were merely the providence of fate seizing Ewing's body. He was controlled by the gods who favored Michael Jordan his entire career, who openly conspired to destroy Patrick Ewing at every turn. The video is now the tragedy of a well-known career in miniature, except a very old-looking, bearded James Worthy is also present for some reason. You weep.

No. 4 Horses–Treadmills

You know when you run on a treadmill really fast with all kinds of wires and crap on you so the doctors can see if your heart isn't a piece of shit? This is a video of that, but with horses. The first horse is fine, almost entirely unremarkable. But the second horse is a genuine thoroughbred, slaying the treadmill, 169 MPH, powerful as shit. If the treadmill stopped, that guy would tear right off that thing and go screaming through several walls, destroying everything in his path. We should bow in humble service to this kingly creature and his supernova haunches.

WINNER: GOD HORSE ON TREADMILL

No. 2 UNC–UCLA, 1968

Almost entirely unremarkable newsreel from the 1968 title game, which, of course, found UCLA the victor. The colors of the game rendered on film are very beautiful, but there are no particularly interesting highlights. There is also a very short, almost subliminal shot of a guy holding a giant confederate flag. I am sure that at the time it was meant to evoke the Southerness of UNC, but in retrospect flashing the stars and bars in the presence of the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar seems like a thinly-veiled threat. Seeing Lew Alcindor force himself to tip in his shots instead of dunking is a reminder that we have to protect the dunk at any cost. Basketball moralists are in retreat, but they will be back in force, with 800-word columns and asinine pleas for decency any day. Protect yourself.

No. 3 Wallaby–Treadmill

A very short video of a wallaby, aka a tiny kangaroo, running on a treadmill, filmed in black and white, with no sound. It's not enough to be a PROPER highlight, but it's so tantalizing, like watching Aaron Gordon dunking, but it's cut off right before the end, and you HAVE to see more, but you can't. The tease is tremendous.

WINNER: MYSTERY WALLABY

No. 1 Cat–Treadmill

The cat is great on its own, but the shoes start to look like cats, too, providing a psychedelic experience: Where do shoes begin and cats end?

No. 4 Derrick Rose and Memphis–Kansas, 2008

Derrick Rose, wearing No. 23, loses to Mario Chalmers, setting a proper tone for the years he spent leading or watching his Chicago Bulls squad get embarrassed by the Miami Heat. Fairly unremarkable, a painting of straight lines. You know, people used to say that Rose was the future of basketball. He wasn't, for reasons fair and unfair. The layups are pretty good. Dozier has an understated charisma.

WINNER: PSYCHEDELIC CATSHOES

No. 2 Melo and Syracuse–Kansas, 2003

Here's Carmelo "The Cello" Anthony dominating in the 2003 title game against Kansas. He is skinnier in close-up and more massive-seeming in the traditional basketball-high-angle shot. He does an awful lot of accomplished passing in this mix, which is cool, but also feels untrue to the ass-based bully I have come to know and love in the NBA. A gentler strain of Carmelo, ground up for college basketball bowls. At one point, Nick Collison (also larger than everyone else, while also being disassociatingly skinnier than Nick Collison, the well-known NBA player) puts a foul on him at the rim, and our hero holds his back and grimaces.

In this grimace, you see the first glimpses of the Carmelo with whom you are more intimately familiar: irritable, weirdly performative, always looking like he has to take a dump. It reminds you that while college Melo is interesting, with all the cutting and the volume passing and whatnot, it is truly no replacement for the irritable auteurist weirdo who abuses defenders with his ass.

No. 3 Ferret–Treadmill

You like the ferret's spirit of adventure, but not that they're a ferret.

WINNER: CARMELO

No. 1 Mice–Treadmill

A video of four mice running on a treadmill, able to see their companions but unable to touch them, to feel them, to interact with them, running in total silence, as long as the treadmill keeps them on their feet, face forward, forever. A powerful rendering of the human condition.

No. 4 Utah–Kentucky, 1998

Utah plays Kentucky for the title and loses in this eventful, if highly standard, highlight mix. Notably features this moving image of Andre Miller voiding his mind and accepting the cosmos so he can channel their divinity on the court:

WINNER: NIHILIST MICE

No. 2 Raccoon–Treadmill

Deeply unnerving. Did this man climb a tree, take a baby raccoon, and imprint himself on it? Does he understand that he trapped this poor baby between two worlds, between human civilization and the casual barbarism of raccoon society? The decision to juxtapose the terror and illogic of a "civilized" raccoon with cutesy "viral content here, please share, thank you" music ups the stakes and makes the work even more terrifying than its original concept.

No. 3 Bill Walton and UCLA–Memphis, 1973

If Sports Criticism, the literary act of evaluating the aesthetic, narrative, and moral values of sports, were a more widely disseminated practice, sports critics would never shut the fuck up about Bill Walton. It's all here: a career of understated, multifaceted play, cut short by injuries and organizational malfeasance; a campus crusader and open pothead stalking the hardwood in defiance of society's expectations of a major athlete; a post-playing-career life spent discussing beloved culture over basketball games. It's the specific romantic/political/intellectual triumvirate that makes middlebrow critics prick up their ears and ride to the defense of an artist. He is basketball's Big Star. "Of course," people would say every week, "these critics love Bill Walton. And it's good, but I don't think it's as great as they say."

And so, with a spirit of generous populism, we say: this is terrible, don't watch it. How could ANYONE enjoy watching Bill Walton play basketball?*

WINNER: RACCOON TRAGEDY

No. 1 Duke–Wisconsin, 2015

Grayson does a cool layup in transition. He will have that title forever, you know. This is hard to watch, knowing you can't will a different outcome with your mind.

No. 4 Poppy–Treadmill

Poppy is a wonderful dog, on a mission to save the Earth from a Giant Space Cat hurtling toward this good planet, looking to treat our mighty skyscrapers like scratching posts.

WINNER: POPPY

No. 2 Dog Named Kobe–Treadmill

"A lot of my friends are complaining my dog is fat so i put him on the treadmill." Kobe is a grim soldier, lost in the wilderness, praying for salvation or violent death—anything to end the madness of life and the faint strains of stock tracks from 2003 workout tapes.

No. 3 UConn–Butler, 2011

WINNER: SAD BULLDOG

The point of this joke article is that all the basketball highlights lose to videos of animals on treadmills. I realize that Carmelo beat the ferret, but I couldn't bring myself to reward a long, greasy rat, even in jest. If I continued making matchups, he would lose in the second round, I assure you. But I feel the joke is suitably fulfilled, and will now stop writing this article. Good day to you, please read next week's column if you get the chance.

*Bill, if you're reading this: I was joking, please be my best friend.