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How much do you love this time of year? Everyone gets into it. Even the people who try to be over-cool and act like they don’t care. We just passed the two most un-productive days in the working calendar - and I’m including the day before Xmas and any Friday before a long weekend. I think the number this year is $1.7B. Who’s job is it to figure out that number? Seriously? Lets just accept it and move on. Forget “justifying it”.

Yes, I am talking about the first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tourney. Everyone is glued to their computer screen and has an internet window with ESPN or CBS open, maybe watching on Joost, constantly checking on scores. Long lunches with a “few beers” or a strategically scheduled off-site with some of your team members. Then when you have an upset brewing, whispers creep through the office and the “resident bracketologist” start their Nostradamus-like gloating - “I had that one”. Yuh-huh. You had the foresight to choose Sienna over Vandy (the same Vandy that beat Tennessee), San Diego over UConn or even Davidson defeating Georgetown. Excuse me, what do I bill my time too?

The pool I’m in has about 300 entries. Yes, odds of winning are tougher, but the payout is better. You need to balance it out with a small pool, 10-20 people, so you at least feel like you have a chance. Anyway, I went with a new selection strategy this year and submitted 3 brackets to the big one. Some people do the mascot, some are homers, and other pick with their hearts. Now, this pool has a couple twists (including bonus pts for upsets). Bracket 1 is the dream bracket. UNC & Pitt playing in the final. Duke losing in the first round. That one is not doing so well. #295 of 319. Ouch. Bracket 2 is strictly by the book. Seeds win. No upsets. Kind of boring, but you could call it the “control group” in my March Madness experiment. #156 of 319. Good news is with all but 2 of the #1’s & #2’s alive, I still have plenty of points available. We’ll see. Bracket 3 is the “thinking man’s” bracket. I didn’t go too crazy with the upsets, but also didn’t believe that teams like Drake and Gonzaga were worth their seeds. I managed to get a couple upsets, but getting hammered in later rounds with UConn & Georgetown getting shown the door. Thanks Big East. Currently #25 of 319. I think at this moment my “entry fee” can now be classified as a donation. Next year, I might break out the D&D 16-sided dice and roll for each game. And you will never get back the 1 minute of your life it took to read this. Sorry.

Not totally off topic, but my big question to the NC-2-A, I’m confused by this years geographical regions. You call a portion of the bracket “East”, yet games are played in Denver? Or how about the “West” bracket, and the first two rounds are played in Tampa and DC. Did Magellan put together the regions? Or maybe it was Miss Teen South Carolina, Caitlin Upton. I know geography isn’t really a college course anymore, but come on. How hard is it to put Denver in the West bracket and DC in the East? I think it would have been great for her to blame the brackets.

The Madness continues.

I’m trying to understand what makes the braintrust of college football world go round. Well, at least the bowl season. Does anyone think this needs to be fixed or organized a little better? I just went through the 2008 BCS bowls (I LOVE college football), watching a bunch of massacres. Even the “national championship” was a blow out. I mean, congrats to LSU. You won. We can debate this all day, but when it comes down to it, Division 1 football (what are they calling it now- Championship sub-division?) has a paper champion. Every other sport in every NCAA division, has a tournament, even women’s water polo! Why is it that there is such resistance to a national tournament?  Finish it on the field.

We’ve had 32 bowl games this year. Thirty-two!! 64 teams playing that extra game. And some of these teams go 1 1/2 months between their final game and their bowl game and show up razor sharp (sarcasm alert). On top of that, AD’s and coaches are scheduling an extra game (12, instead of 11) on their fall tilt just to hope to be bowl eligible - 6 wins, at least 5 of them against the conference formally known at D-1. This year, you had 6 teams play in bowl games that were 6-6 (Cal, ‘Bama, Maryland, Colorado, Nevada & UCLA). Is that considered a successful season? Sure, you end up playing in the Petrosun Independence Bowl in Shreveport, LA (they should have just called it the Tidyflush Toilet Bowl), but when is enough, enough? Is it more money? Television dollars? Ticket sales?  Alumni support?

Getting back to my original thought… What’s wrong with a playoff? I heard the UGA President suggested an 8-game playoff. With the four major bowls serving as the 1st round. I think its a fantastic idea. Schools still get their money for appearing the bowl, and at most 2 teams will play one extra game and two teams will pay two extra games. I don’t understand why any college team, especially one that wants to call and claim themselves as national champion, wouldn’t want to do that. Competitors, right? Athletes, right? I say erase the doubt and settle it on the field. Don’t leave it up to writers and pre-season polls to determine who’s in and who’s out. The sad part about this suggestion, is that it barely caused a ripple. The “N-C-two-A” didn’t even give it enough credence to create a committee to discuss the possibility. Or at least reject it with come type of common sense. They just said no. The same way I did when I was 6 and I didn’t want to eat my green beans. I’d love to sit in on a meeting with the NCAA and just hear the reasons behind not having a playoff. We have to remember that these are the same people that thought to bring in the 64/65 game for the basketball tourney. I wonder how many man-hours went into that decision process. Is that one extra game, extra team really necessary? Did they think this was going to be innovative and shake up the world of basketball? Ok, ok, so you give one more team hope, a shot, you’re in the dance. Want to be labeled as the last team in? As if 64 teams aren’t enough. The 64/65 game kind of reminds me two male black widow spiders. They fight and fight to win. The winner then gets to mate with the female. There’s a little joy, hopefully some satisfaction, then he gets his head ripped off. End of story. Lamb to the slaughter.

So come on, NCAA, lets get this one right. Bring on the playoff. Satisfy the masses. Who loses in this scenario? No one. Who wins in the current scenario? The players, schools and alumni. Could you imagine if basketball had “bowl games”, and the top two teams were selected to play in the national championship? If you use the basketball model, how many times has the number 1 or number 2 won the whole thing? That’s right. Its not a given. Settle it on the field. Just like every other sport, game and event is done. Welcome to the 21st century.