The Karma Is A Bitch Theory

New theory this time. It is, to the best of my knowledge, flawless. Which means someone who reads this will discover a fatal flaw. Call me on it. Do your worst.

So: the fundamentals. Every team starts the season (assuming no injuries) with a neutral Karma-O-Meter. Except for Duke, which starts with mild negative karma because everyone hates them. Throughout the course of the season, various events and games cause the meter to fluctuate one way or the other. As the season gets closer to March Madness, these games and events have more of an impact on the Meter. Upon entering the tourney and throughout, the meter continues to change.

Now. The central premise of this theory: Karma in and of itself does not determine a game’s outcome. BUT. When a team with significant positive karma runs into a team with significant negative karma, it can have a big impact on the game. This is why Georgetown went icy down the stretch and lost to Davidson. This is why Florida won it all last year (I’ll explain). This is why UCLA, Memphis, and Tennessee cannot win the title. This is why Duke ALMOST lost to Belmont and ultimately did lose to WVU.

Before I explain all that, let me list what causes each type of karma:

Positive Karma Causes

• Injuries: universally cause good karma, because it is a bad thing happening
• David Padgett, Louisville
• Ty Lawson, UNC
• Darren Collison, UCLA
• Losing Close Games: duh.
• Davidson a million times
• Clemson against UNC, 3 times
• Getting Screwed by the Referees
• Stanford against UCLA
• Cal against UCLA
• A&M against UCLA (notice a pattern? But that’s a subject for another post…)
• Many, many more
• Senior Leadership – don’t ask me why; it just works.
• A.J. Graves, Butler
• Reserved Coach who Gets It Done
• Howland, UCLA
• McKillop, Davidson

Negative Karma Causes:

• Close wins
• Georgetown for the entire second half of the season
• UCLA’s 3 of last 6 games
• Tennessee toward end of season
• UNC over Clemson in regular season
• Getting The Benefit of the Call When The Game Is On The Line
• Do I need to mention UCLA?
• Georgetown
• Memphis (see: Miss. St)
• Tenn vs Butler (if you want to argue against me on that one, I won’t really fight you)
• Having a Loud, Obnoxious Asshole Coach
• Bruce Pearl
• Coach K (not loud, but a piece of shit)
• John Calipari
• Having a Goofy Ugly Player Who Wears a Headband
• Lorenzo Mata-Real, UCLA
• Okay, I made this one up specifically for Mata-Real, because I hate him.

Seriously. How ugly is this guy. -50 on the arbitrary karma scale.

This should all make sense now. For what it's worth, Florida won last year because they returned all 5 starters. Major karma props there for not making the jump to the NBA. Maybe in another post I’ll look at all the Elite 8 teams and rate their karma. But I have too much shit to do right now for that.