March Madness!!!

I love March Madness. Anyone who has spent an extended amount of time with me in the month of March knows my obsession with college basketball. It is by far my favorite sport (and yes, I do work in college football, and yes, I am obsessed with World Cup too). But college basketball is CRAZY, especially starting this week.

Despite my UCLA Bruins recent attempts to send John Wooden to his grave earlier than necessary with their complete disregard for fundamentals and brains, I am still loving this year's season. There are NO dominant teams, and I can't wait for the March Madness brackets to come out so I can start picking my upsets...


(*SPECIAL NOTE - If you're looking for an upset-special, take a look at University of Montana out of the Big Sky conference. They have a guy named Anthony Johnson that is an absolute stud, and is coming off a career-high - and Big Sky Championship record - 42 points on way to sending "The Grizz" to the Big Dance. If they get a decent matchup, they are my upset pick.)

I am taking next Thursday and Friday off for the first two days of the tournament. All basketball, all day (maybe with some beer and pizza and wings mixed in, too).

Want to know the sad part? I have been doing a bracket pool with my dad, brother, sister and step-mother for 15 years...and I have never won. Even my step-mother, who chooses teams based on a) how cute their mascot is, b) how their name rolls off her tongue, or c) if their coach is attractive, has won before. I have a ridiculous amount of basketball knowledge, from team info to statistics to coaching tendencies...and that is WHY I have never won. I try to incorporate logic into an absolutely unpredictable, pandemonium-stricken event. The event lives off upsets, last-second shots, Cinderella stories, and "who-da-thunk-it" moments? So what's my new plan for this year? No friggin clue.

I feel bad too, because every year I help Katharine (co-worker) with her picks, because she thinks I might know something about hoops. So inevitably our picks are very similar, and when you combine that with my aforementioned 0-15 in bracket pools...it just screws her over too!

Now I will make a couple predictions (and you can hold me to them later):
-Syracuse will NOT make the National Championship
-The Pac-10 will not get a team past the first round
-If San Diego State makes the tournament, they will win their opening round game



March Madness gets me so AMPED!