Let the Madness Begin

March. The month home to spring break, spring training, and the greatest three weeks in sports. Every year in March the NCAA puts on the greatest tournament in all of sports. This Thursday will begin a 64 team race to the city of Houston, Texas. College basketball experts, fans, professional athletes, actors, actresses, plumbers, hedge fund managers, teachers, students, moms, dads, grandpas, and grandmas; everyone has a bracket and everyone wants their bracket to be the best.

                This tournament is everything every other sport tries to emulate, but just can’t quite get that same pulse. The Super Bowl is close, but still doesn’t have this same mass appeal. It’s easy to pick between two teams playing one game, heck you could just flip a coin if you weren’t really sure who to pick. Granted, you could flip a coin through your entire bracket, but that’s just lazy and boring. March Madness allows you to create your own wild and outlandish calculation, like a mad scientist in his laboratory. That’s what creates the mystique around these three weeks. It’s the fact that anyone can fill out a bracket, and look like the expert. The casual on looker can keep a mild temper on the NCAA landscape and still come out looking like a Las Vegas odds maker.

             To us college hoops fans, this is our Christmas. We all have our team we follow closer than others, but it’s a sport where to love our team, we need to keep our eyes peeled to the entire landscape. Talking college basketball with a college basketball fan is a different kind of conversation. Much like the cult of hockey, there is a cult in college hoops. Diehard college hoops fans can tell you about the kid from Nobody St. who is a redshirt freshman in the Summit League who could possibly take over its first round game against a national powerhouse (Mike Daum – SDSU Jackrabbits). We can show you what it means to hate (30 for 30 – I Still Hate Christian Laettner) or we can show you how to love the tournament (Ron Hunter with son RJ Hunter last March).

              I am not going to break down every single game here – but I will give you my Final Four and champion. I am in a variety of pools, filling out numerous brackets (which my girlfriend is against – she is a one bracket kind of gal). But every bracket has ended up with 3 of 4 following teams ending up in Houston.

Final Four

Kansas vs Oklahoma

North Carolina vs Michigan State

National Championship

Kansas VS North Carolina

National Champion – and it pains me to say this…

North Carolina Tar Heels

Yes folks, I know I dogged them all year. Hell, I dog them every year, but this team is peaking right now, at a time when many considered them to be the odds on favorite at the start of the year. This is a classic Roy Williams team with strong and smart Point Guard play from Marcus Paige. Bryce Johnson and company are showing range and athleticism down on the blocks – with great play from wingman Justin Jackson. It truly does pain me to make this prediction. But I think they are the best team right now, primed and ready to make a run to a (gulp) 6^th National Championship. Dammit.

The next three weeks are a magical time for fans of the game and casual fans alike. We are all experts and we are all amateurs. It’s a spectacle that everyone can appreciate, biting their nails in anticipation of their pick upsetting the favorite, getting to be the person who says I told you so. Your bracket is the ultimate “in your face” to people you beat. This event comes back every March, and it feels like every year it’s getting more and more competitive, so enjoy it. Chances are you are going to see and feel something that is going to make your heart skip a beat with excitement.