NCAA BRACKETOLOGY 101

As another spring snowstorm moves in on the Chicago suburbs, we are warmed by the return of March Madness and another chance to participate in the office pool. Actually, I participate in the pool that the folks at Mrs. TheSlav's workplace organizes. She bankrolls the entrance fee and I figuratively light the match that will ignite her investment dollars and turn them to ashes for yet another year.

It must be the "system" I employ, which is a mix of playing the chalk for the most part, with selective hedging on the "coin-toss" games, combined with a flyer or two on an upset from a so-called "Cinderella" team. The problem is there really are no "Cinderella" teams anymore. Everybody and his cousin who has access to a microphone and an audience leads up the week to the madness with their best guesses for "this year's George Mason". You almost have to be the first idiot to pick a #16 seed to crash the Final Four to be seen as the office "savant".

So ultimately it comes down to being the person in the lead who has picked the eventual national champion.

Just to give you insight into the lack of a life I lead, The Mrs. (or is it Mrs. The??) and I spent considerable time last night arguing about the relative fairness of my assigning the ownership of the "first" bracket to myself (just for bragging rights, I have zero chance of seeing any of the money should it win) and the "second" bracket to her. My argument is, since I rarely win these type of things, my first impression is generally sufficiently wrong so as not to have any real chance of winning the whole thing. Therefore, hers would have the better chance, at least against mine. Also, I had all four #1 seeds in the Final Four vs. her two out of four. She has Georgetown and Texas crashing. We both have a UCLA-UNC final, I have UNC winning, she has UCLA, so we'll see. I found her argument "why do you always come first?" both childish and inaccurate. But I kept my opinion to myself, even though our couches are very comfortable and spacious.

She wasn't buying my arguments obviously, but by the end of last night, I had four wrong vs. her one wrong. Our service also had the Texas A&M game marked wrong whether you had BYU picked to win or A&M I had BYU, she had A&M.

As I right this, Davidson #10 seed is beating Gonzaga a #7 seed, A Slav upset special on both cards. HOW ABOUT THAT!!! Last night, I split the #11 K-State vs. #6 USC game, she won of course. Drake is struggling in Tampa, which would hurt us both. They are a Sweet Sixteener for both of us.

Next year, I think I get the "which mascot wins in a fight" strategy, she gets the other one. I'll just tell her there were a lot of upsets.

UPDATE: WOW, Emmenaker from Drake just flopped his way to a charge to take the last possession away from W. Ky. Thanks ZEBRAS. OT, Baby!!! The refs suck at this level, they really do. Pawlus for Duke carried a ball five feet out of bounds, right in front of the ref yesterday and no call. Almost cost Belmont the game, maybe it did. You can argue that Duke didn't score on the possession, but the fact is, BELMONT SHOULD HAVE MAINTAINED possession and who knows what happens if they put it in from under their basket. They should just let the Dukies call their own game like the biggest kid on the playground does by force of personality and overall mass. That way we wouldn't have the hypocrisy we do know that it's a somewhat evenly called game.

Drakie goes to the line down one late in OT on a ?? call. Not much contact under the boards, if any it was initiated by Drake. ZEBRAS must also have Drake going deep. Big guy hits two. WKU has to go the length of the court, Tyus Edny style, to win. WOW, WKU's guard goes length of the court, gets cut off and kicks it back for a deep three to win it. BYE-BYE Drake.