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 generally pretty excitable about hockey. You could pretty much have the two worst teams in the league playing and I’d rather tune into that than any reality show, any day of the week. You get a couple of corn & beef fed Canadians, mixed in with some soviet block Europeans and a few Americans (whose dad didn’t force them into football) and you got yourself a good ole time on ice. Mix in the barbaric cross-checks and the occasional pugilistic fight (its actually called policing) and it’s a night of fun for the whole family.
YES! It is over. Couple tense moments. Couple moments looked like pre-game batting practice. But I’ll take it. Anytime. My phone has remained somewhat silent for the last week, except for my girlfriend’s sister (she lives in Denver) realizing that the bet she made with me was a lost cause. Most of her texts were “Oh Crap” and “Oh God” and “Dammit”. Sweet! Free El Azteca for me!