Every year around this time my mom calls me for help with her March Madness bracket. I tell her every year that I don’t really follow college basketball and that discussing it with me is not a competitive advantage. But it happens anyway.
She called last night and she was reading through the matchups and I realized that I couldn’t even remember the teams I had picked! Usually I fill out a hard copy. Writing the team names multiple times helps me remember them. This year, though, I used ESPN and did my bracket online.
One advantage to using some of the sports websites (Yahoo, CBS) is that they give you some information about the teams playing. That is extremely helpful for someone who doesn’t know anything about Loyola-Marymount. It felt like I was making informed decisions for a change instead of (relatively) blindly guessing.
But there is a downside to that too. First, I didn’t even look at what teams I was picking just what their matchup situation said would likely happen. This also was a cause of why I forgot my picks. Second, you should never feel good about your bracket. It’s not a math equation where there is an understood answer. Every matchup is a crapshoot. Any Given Sunday should have been a movie about the NCAA Tournament. The word upset was created for March Madness (mad / upset, see a connection?)
So don’t get too comfortable with your bracket until the first 2 rounds are complete. Highlight the winners and cross out the losers and see where you stand after the guaranteed wreckage. Everybody knows Sweet Sixteen is more important than just a birthday.
This year for the family tourney, I filled out a bracket for me and one for my cat, Abby. My picks were based on a "which team just feels better in this scenario even though I know nothing about them." Abby tended to "pick" schools that had animals as mascots, especially if they were cats. We'll see if she beats me.
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