Bracketology

Hey everybody! It's my favorite time of the year once again...March Madness is without a doubt the greatest 3 weeks on the sports calendar. And pay particular attention to the first weekend of The Tournament (1st and 2nd Rounds), in which, over a 4-day span, you get to see 48 games from arguably the best 64 teams in college basketball.

48 GAMES IN 4 DAYS!!!

And the beauty of The Tournament is that you do not have to even be a fan of college basketball to have fun during it! March Madness has added a word to our everyday vocabulary:

Bracketology.

The brilliance of the bracket has never been more evident than it is today. You can go to almost any website that has any sports content on it, and they will almost assuredly have a Bracket Challenege contest. Most of them are free, and usually there are significant cash prizes to the top finishers. Where else can you find a better deal than that!

Of course, as any Senior Bracketologist can attest, the "winners" are just as often the product of dumb luck as actual basketball knowledge. In the thousands of office pools that will be created this year, there will be just as many secretaries who win because "a Bulldog is cuter than a Wildcat," as there will be winners who actually know what Gonzaga and Davidson bring to the court.

This can be very frutrasting to the people (i.e...me) who will spend all Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday studying the collective RPI's, records vs. Top 25 opponents, and Points-Per-Game Differential, thinking we will gain that little competitive advantage which will tell us that Cornell will indeed beat Stanford and give us that 1 extra point which will put us over Jane from Accounting in the standings.

But let's be honest...it doesn't work that way. March Madness is about as unpredictable a sporting event as you can get. And even though I know this, I still have spent all Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and will spend tomorrow finalizing my picks, only to have my entire bracket uprooted in one day when Butler loses to South Alabama.

Maybe I should just steal Jane from Accounting's Bracket.