Ah, German, the language of love. If ever there were a people inclined to have a specific word for taking joy in the misery of others it’d be the Germans. Also probably the Russians. You’d think the English as well.

OK, look, they’d be white.

Anyway, this week’s draft topic comes from frequent contributor Rikki-Tikki-Deadly, who suggested schadenfreude, but for sports. The rules are you are picking a contest in which a team you hate lost ignominiously. Or just by one point, whatever, the point is they have to lose. With an extra kinky twist, (is there any other kind? I bet the Germans have a word for it!), also courtesy of RTD, that you cannot include the game if a favorite team of yours happened to win.

For example while I can, (and likely will), take any number of Duke losses in various post-season tournaments, I could not take either of the times UConn beat them in either the title game or Final Four semifinals. But I will here remind you that that happened.

Twice.

Rikki came up with the topic, so Rikki gets the first pick. I’m writing this late, (did you get your wife to airport on time to fly cross-country and still get a bunch of stuff done around the house and manage to bang this out, (PHRASING!), on time anyway? No? Then shut it), but he fortunately has given me what would be his first pick, which I present here without comment:

“My top pick would be #15 seed Lehigh beating a #2 Duke team that featured a bunch of future NBA players including Austin Rivers, Seth Curry, and Mason Plumlee, Miles Plumlee, Ryan Kelly, Marshall Plumlee, Quinn Cook, Andre Dawkins (played a handful of games in the NBA), Michael Gbinije (drafted #49 but never played)…”

Rikki also gave me his second pick which, while I am tempted to take just to be a dick, I will leave to him to draft in the second, should it slide that far.

As for my first pick, I will take UNC beating Duke this past season in Coach K’s (I suspect we’ll see him again. And again, and again), final game at Cameron. Not so much for Duke losing the game, (which they did), but for Coach K’s meltdown afterwards, during which he basically told the crowd to shut up so he could keep throwing his team under the bus. It’s always nice