Tag: bracket

  • Brackets

    It is almost Spring, which means that it’s time for everyone to make a bracket for the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

    I don’t follow college basketball; I just need to get that out there first. But what I do follow is competition, and the chance to show old friends how good I am at something I know nothing about. That’s why I love making a bracket. I don’t know crap, but now and then, I will make better picks than my friends who spend hours researching, and working on their predictions.

    For my method of making picks. I just kind’a make up a story in my head about what I think will make a dramatic tournament. I have to have several huge upsets, and small schools beating powerhouses. I like to pick the Ivy League to win in the first round, just because a “brains” beating the “jocks” is a story that is always entertaining. And then, for no good reason at all, I’ll pick a #8 seed team to win the whole thing, in honor of the 1985 Villanova team.

    I downloaded the ESPN Tournament app on my phone, but as of writing this, I haven’t put a bracket together. I normally do three, because why the hell not. One is for my “real” picks, one is just random, and one is my best guess as to which team’s mascot would win in a fight against the other team’s mascot.

    The one development this year is that my daughter is interested in make a bracket. We will knock that out after school today, and I will let her pick whatever she likes. I won’t lie, I like the idea of watching the games with my kid. That feels like a wholesome father/daughter thing to do.

  • Making Brackets

    I don’t follow college basketball. Most years I couldn’t name a single college player, but this season I do know who Caitlin Clark is. Even though basketball is my family’s sport, I never was a huge fan, and I’m an awful player.

    But I do love March Madness, the NCAA Tournament, the whole thing. As I am writing this, I have the BYU v Duquesne game on; it’s halftime. For like a month, in my head, I am a basketball expert – I know everything! I understand the pick n’ roll, trap defense, what adjustments teams need to make at halftime.

    (Working from my bed this afternoon)

    Making my brackets is what really pulls me into this time of year. Yes, I did say brackets. I make a couple of them because the ESPN app is easy to use. The first one is my legitimate bracket where I do try to pick as many winners as possible. Then I do a fun one where I just pick stuff randomly. This year I added an all underdog bracket, and then I did an all top ranked bracket; I just wanted to see which bracket would do better.

    What I do miss is being in an office at this time of year. Mind you, I worked in theatre and arts organization offices so there weren’t many sports fans to begin with, but there were a handful of us. We few would make brackets, put them up at our desks, and help each other cover so we could watch games at our desks or in the break room. It was a fun time of year to getting away with not working.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Nearly Perfect Bracket, Talkin’ Football, and Kids n’ St. Patrick

    (We are sports heavy this week…)

    I wrote the other day about how my bracket predictions are pretty much shit as they are all guesses and I pick way too many underdogs. Well, yesterday, I called every game, save one. I got Furman v. Virginia wrong. And I blame Princeton for it. That’s right. I had selected Princeton over Arizona, as I have a weakness for the Ivy-League schools. So, because of that pick, I told myself I needed to be a bit realistic with the rest of my selections. Hence why I took Virginia. Besides Princeton, the rest of my underdog picks really weren’t that impressive; Auburn, and Penn State. This is why you should go with your gut. As of this moment, my bracket is ranked 659 out of 14million. I know that will change by the end of today. But right now, in this moment, I am nearly perfect.

    I have a Tottenham Hotspur scarf that I put on when it is cold out. To most people it just looks like a white and navy scarf, but yesterday a guy stopped me, asking if I was a Tottenham fan. I talked to someone on the street about football. Mainly the Champions League, as the guy’s club was Barcelona, but still. This is the first time I have actually talked football with someone when the World Cup wasn’t going on. It made me feel like my fandom was validated.

    Today is St. Patrick’s Day. All week, leading up to this, the kid couldn’t have given two shits about it. In fact, she asked me lots of questions of why the day is celebrated, and if it’s really only a grown-up holiday. I tried to give her a little history lesson on all the Irish who immigrated to this country, and how they have influenced and made our country a better place. You know, because immigrants do make our country better. She got it, but still didn’t think St. Patrick’s Day was that big of a deal. And then this morning, she was all about putting on green, and finding leprechauns, and pots o’ gold. I think this proves, that for kids, you never let a holiday go to waste.

  • Brackets: Go with a #11 Team

    The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament starts today, and this will be the only time this year when I will care about college basketball. I have nothing against the sport of basketball. You could say that basketball is my family’s sport, being that we all played it growing up. My brother is a basketball coach and so is his son, and when the whole family gets together, we end up talking basketball; pro, college, high school.

    What I do enjoy is the drama of competition. I like watching underdogs, on a big huge national stage, upsetting powerhouse teams. There is something so completely satisfying and life affirming in watching a team made up of players that have been dismissed and underestimated, dig deep and do something no one thought was possible. It gives you hope, you know.

    And that is also why I am so utterly awful at making a bracket for the tournament. I’ve done three this year, each with a different champion; Arizona, Kansas, and Gonzaga. I’m not stupid, I know one of the Big Teams will win the tournament. But if you look at my predictions, I have an overwhelming preference for lower seeded teams. I’m picking Colgate over Texas. Why? Because I want to see that small school slay a giant. Because I want to see that Colgate team celebrate on the court like they just won the whole thing! That belief, hard work, and luck can converge and something amazing can happen.

    And for that reason, my brackets always sucked. I used to make a bracket at every office I worked at, and there always some guy who took the whole thing way too seriously, and would make fun of my completely bonker predictions. But every so often I’d get a pick like VCU or Loyola Chicago right. And that feeling of proving that guy wrong and watching his bracket explode in his face; it was like Christmas morning and my birthday wrapped in one!