Over the last few weeks it seems like I’ve participated in a few dozen identical conversations about the NCAA Tournament that start off with a comment like this: “Can you believe that [insert team] team lost? My bracket is so screwed. This tournament is just crazy.”
I always reply, “It’s like this every year.”
And my conversation partner insists, “No way, this year is the craziest it has ever been, there have been so many upsets.”
Go ahead and try to justify your failure of a bracket, but I don’t see the point. To me, that’s the beauty of March Madness. I root for chaos. Maybe that’s partly because I was all but eliminated in my bracket pool by midway through the Sweet 16, but regardless, the David vs. Goliath stories are what make the NCAA Tournament great.
To truly enjoy the tournament, I try to follow simple advice: forget my bracket. One of my cats has as good a chance of picking a winning bracket as I do, so I don’t fret when my well thought out pick sheet is a river of red hours into the Madness. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
Sure, it’s fun to fill those suckers out, and every year I convince myself I’ve got a winner, but the truth is that if one day I do win, it will be more a result of luck than skill.
The best way for me to enjoy March Madness is to put my bracket out of sight and out of mind and enjoy the ridiculousness that is this tournament for as long as it lasts because we’re rapidly approaching the dull as dirt summer months when the only relevant sporting event is more likely to put me to sleep than Nyquil.
The Final Four is coming up this weekend and soon we’ll have our new National Champion. At least officially, because as far as I’m concerned, the best team in the country was already crowned when Kemba Walker’s UConn Huskies won the Big East Championship a few weeks back.
They’re still alive, so my money’s on them. But what do I know; I’m going to consult Fluffy.
