My Bracket

Yes. I filled out a bracket. Me and fifty million of my fellow Americans sat down for ten minutes and made 61 snap decisions based on nothing more than the unscientific urgings of instinct. This one cost me twenty bucks and is run by our office bookie, Bland Weaver. Three or four years ago, I won the thing. Most years I'm middle of the pack.

There once was a time when I followed college basketball. I would watch a dozen or so games during the regular season, and read up on the fortunes of my local teams (UR, UVA, VT and VCU). But, not so much anymore.

Ok, so let me explain my methodology. When you have actually watched not one single game in its entirety all season, and know virtually nothing about all but a handful of teams, how does one go about making picks? I always start with the 16-1 matchup and pick the number one seed, since an upset there has never happened. Then I look for all of the local teams and pick all of them except UVA. Why? Mostly because it is my firm belief that there exists nowhere in the universe a university as overrated as Mr. Jefferson's school. Besides, their coach, Tony Bennett is frankly entirely too handsome to be a basketball coach. It's just not right. Then I go on to the matchups where I have literally no information. Perfect example of this...Purdue vs. Vermont. Frankly, it would require at least three boilermakers to force me to watch this game. I picked Purdue because I had no idea that anyone in Vermont even played basketball. Or how about Oregon vs. Iona? Seriously? Iona? They named a college after my fourth grade teacher?

Here are a list of the major upsets that I picked:

UNC Wilmington over UVA
Florida Gulf Coast over Florida
Nevada over Iowa State
Rhode Island over Creighton

That's it. Four upsets. I guess I'm a front runner.

I did notice that this year's bracket sheet comes courtesy of Jiffy Lube, a perfectly legal business enterprise which happily attaches its name to what amounts to a criminal enterprise whereby businesses throughout the nation are transformed into illegal wagering parlors in clear violation of every gambling statute on the books. The cops would do something about this wanton law breaking, but they are all watching the games!