March Madness

Once again, I'm forced to fill out those bracket sheets, as if to prove to the world that I'm actually as basketball-savvy as I say I am. These are those cryptic bracket sheets that come out every March that women are perplexed about. And when they ask guys the meaning of it all, guys will shrug and say, "Oh, it's nothing you'd understand. It's college basketball."

Some nerds will stay up till the wee hours of the morning reading scouting reports so that they can do their bracket sheets. Me, I just eenie-meenie-minie-moe half of the thing. Actually, I do have a system. The way I pick upsets is if the higher ranked team has a yucky name, they will not win it. Sorry Bobby Knight but as long as your school is named Texas Tech, you aren't going anywhere against UCLA in the first round.

It's not that I don't know anything about college basketball -- I know plenty. I know whatever Dick Vitale knows, which is just the ACC. I know everything about the Illini because everyone from NIU has suddenly become die-hard fans. But if you ask me who the starting center is for Creighton, I will just fart and walk away.

About those brackets, I'm going to try to demystify them and say that they're just another way for guys to bond together. Just another conversation tool. When I go out to the bars during the month of March, instead of asking my buddy what kind of beer he's got in his hand, I'll ask him who his Final Four are. I'll ask him who his dark horse is. Or I'll ask him if he has a Cinderella team.

The way I pick my Cinderella team is I'll scan the brackets for the team with the longest, ugliest name. It usually doesn't work, but it did a few years back for Valparaiso.

And to all you guys who want to look cool but don't know jack about college basketball, just say Gonzaga is your dark horse. It works every year.