God manipulating games to win bracket contest

BRISTOL, CT — Amid all of the upsets and busted brackets from the first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, there is one bracket on ESPN.com’s Tournament Challenge – with the user name God1 – that remains unblemished.

According to the site, “God1″ has so far correctly predicted every game, and a source with ESPN has confirmed that it is, indeed, the Supreme Deity himself who filled out the still-perfect bracket.

“We didn’t believe it at first, of course. Lots of people go around calling themselves God. But let’s just say He let us know it was Him, and nobody here has any doubt about it anymore. Even Van Pelt, and he was a pretty staunch agnostic.”

But all is apparently not kosher in the Kingdom of Heaven. Archangel Gabriel has accused God of manipulating games in order to win the contest. “How else could freakin’ Villanova, Davidson and Western Kentucky be in the Sweet Sixteen? Do you think that was an accident?”

But the smoking gun in Gabriel’s case was Stanford’s 82-81 overtime win over Marquette.

“We were sitting around watching the game, drinking a beer,” Gabriel recounted to SSNN. “I already thought something was up, because He hadn’t missed any games to that point. Then, when Brook Lopez shot that game winner – did you see how it sort of bounced out, then dropped back in? How do you think that happened? And God’s just sitting there with this little smirk on his face, like ‘yeah, I did it.’ But He’s God, you know? Who’s gonna call him on it?”

When asked by SSNN about the accusations, God just laughed. “Hell yeah, I’ve been intervening in these games. I got sick of losing at these damned brackets. Every year my brackets go up in smoke after the first round. Then I remembered – I’m me; and a light just kinda came on.”

Contrary to popular opinion, God does not often intervene in sporting events. While He didn’t deny shaving the occasional point in pro football, the Ruler of Heaven usually has much more important things to do than swing athletic contests one way or another.

“Seriously, it’s just not a normal practice for me. But that’s really another reason why I did it. People are always saying, ‘God enabled me to win,’ blah, blah, blah,” He said. “The truth is, I never really get involved in sports – mostly I like the idea of fair and even competition. But I know when there’s an opportunity to win some easy cash.”

ESPN has yet to issue an official statement about the incident, but SSNN’s source within the network has confirmed rumors the network has appealed to the Vatican. “We’ve asked the Pope what we should do, if anything. There’s no handbook on how to handle this situation.”

God has said he has no plans to stop changing the outcomes of games. “This will teach people to stop throwing around the word ‘miracle’. I got your miracles right here.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!