Second Take with @BradleyGelber – Putting The Madness In March

It’s that time of year again folks. The time where we fill out our brackets and hope by some miraculous touch of divine intervention that we actually have a shot at picking some of the NCAA tournament games correctly. I am not a college basketball enthusiast. At all. I’ll watch the occasional game here, or there, but when it comes time to filling out my bracket, I am fairly clueless. I have come to the conclusion that I am not alone.

Despite all of the “knowledge” that people boast about college basketball, let’s be real… it’s all about luck. Perhaps you do follow a team like Syracuse and know the difference between Tyler Ennis and Tyler Ennis, but does that really help you decide that SF Austin is going to upset VCU? No, no it doesn’t.

If you’re like me you make take the time to research “expert” brackets in the hopes that their luck may end up rubbing off on you, but again this is mostly just to provide some additional reassurance for yourself. When it comes to the experts, I am a big fan of Jay Bilas since it’s awfully hard to find more of an authority on college basketball. He even provides logic behind picking his upsets whereas most of just say: “aw screw it, my second cousin’s brother’s best friend’s girlfriend went to Mercer so I’m going to pick them over Duke!” But even with this so-called reasoning and logic, it is still a long shot that these upsets actually occur. That is why the team picked to win is the favorite. They’re supposed to win.

It’s hard for me as an avid sports fan to wrap my head around the fact that one of the most watched and followed events of the year is merely all about luck of the draw until we get down to the final 16 or 8 teams in the tournament. This isn’t the MLB, NHL, or NBA playoffs where it is a best out of 7 series and the better team wins more times than not. This isn’t even the NFL playoffs with single elimination because of the fact that we never see the equivalent of a high school football team lined up against the Patriots in the divisional round like we do when we see a 16 seed like Albany square off against a powerhouse number 1 seed like Florida. It just doesn’t happen anywhere else and causes sensibility to be absent.

Now I understand that adds to the fun and excitement of the tournament. It’s what makes the major upsets so riveting, but it’s also what makes the entire tournament so entirely based around chance. Furthermore think about what this serendipitous tournament does to all of us… during the month of March we take off from work, or even worse pretend we are working when in fact we are watching/following along with games all day. We develop a severe gambling addiction that is not only condoned, but encouraged by major networks like ESPN & CBS Sports. Similar to fantasy football we root for teams/players we would normally hate because we need them to win to one up our best friends. We also take joy in watching many 18-22 year old “kids” fail…

Yes in some ways March Madness is downright sinful, vile & immoral. It also give your girlfriend bragging rights over you when she picks freaking Dayton to beat Ohio State & then again picks Dayton again to beat Syracuse… Like seriously, who does that? Ugh. WHATEVER. Not like it bugs me or anything. Pshhh. But that right there is my point. While my girlfriend actually is a big sports fan, she even admitted she picked Dayton because a friend went there and she thought it would be funny. Still, being right is being right and she was (even if it is painful for me to admit.)

I’ll always enjoy partaking in the madness that is the NCAA Tournament, but I’ll never pretend I have any idea what I’m doing. I’ve been fairly successful in brackets in the past, BUT I’ve also been god-awful. My advice to you is if you come across someone who tells you they know what they’re doing run. Run as far away as possible, but first call them a liar because that’s what they are. I like many others picked Michigan State to win it all. Not because I watched the team vehemently this season (because I didn’t.) Not because I am an alumni (because I’m not.) Not because a buddy of mine went there (because none of them did.) The reason I picked Michigan State was because Jay Bilas told me to and you know what? I’m not afraid to admit that. Take that all you March Madness aficionados!

Tweet of the Week: 

Mr. DJ won’t you turn the music up?