Mar 19, 2011

March Sadness




Pitt lost and blew up my Southeast bracket. I didn't see the brilliance of Vandy and Louisville losing in the first (well, officially second) round. It was odd to see Rick Patino as a TV pundit so early in the tournament. In fact I couldn't fathom why he was spouting basketballisms on my TV. Oh, right. Morehead State. Sorry 'bout that.

Every year we do brackets in my department at work. I submit two entries: me and the cat. The cat is currently beating me (and a number of my colleagues).

There is no science to how we choose our teams. This year I did mine before a meeting and kept interrupting to ask for opinions. "Duke or Texas?" "Xavier or Marquette? It's like a battle of the Jesuit Catholic colleges." Fortunately they ignored me, which is nothing new if you've been to our meetings.

The cat decided that the NCAA selection committee was omniscient. He picked by seed and the results have been decent. In prior years he picked by mascot, focusing on bird and cat mascots. That didn't go so well but thinking about the birds had him salivating. He didn't pick Richmond either, mostly because their mascot is a spider. (Not as delicious as a bird.)

Last year the person in our department who knew the least about basketball won it all. Another year someone chose the winning bracket using strictly school colors. "Let's see. You can't have two blue and whites playing for the final. Let's put a red and white in there." This confirms that basketball knowledge has nothing to do with bracketology. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And that's what makes it fun. Until my Southeast bracket blows up and that makes me grumpy.

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