March Madness Is In Full Swing!

For college basketball fans, these last four days were all about doing nothing but watching game after game after game, grabbing the remote to switch and see how your teams were doing on one of the four channels covering all thirty-two games this weekend! They were CBS, TNT, TBS and TruTV.

March Madness is living up to its name this year. So far, there have been plenty of upsets, brackets busted, and the field is almost completely narrowed down to the Sweet 16.

Personally, I still have my eventual winner in the Sweet 16, and a couple other possible point producing teams, but my bracket fell on hard times yesterday and today. With eighty-six people in our pool after day one, I was only one point out of the lead. Day two, just two points out.

Then Saturday and Sunday brought carnage and yours truly now finds himself about fifteen points out of the lead! I am still in the upper half, but that is not saying much.

Friends of mine run the pool I enter every year, and it seems to be getting larger and larger every year. This year is the largest number of participants they have had, although I think some people enter more than one time.

For instance, there is one participant whose name is Reggie Bird, who happens to be a cockatiel. I know he does not fill out the brackets, so one of two humans must be doing it for him. One of my goals is to make sure I beat that damn bird every year!

Another one of my goals is to make sure I finish ahead of two longtime friends who have been entering in the tournament pool now for many years. We have an ongoing battle between the three of us, and I consider it a successful year when I finish about those two! Right now, I am ahead of both of them. However, one of them has a pretty good-looking bracket yet and may overtake me next weekend in the Sweet 16. The other one is done as his pick to win it all has already lost.

Many years ago, when a friend from high school worked at the local CBS affiliate, WCCO, he asked me if I would enter their pool. This was back before the Internet and email, so I picked up the brackets, filled them out and took them back down to the WCCO building.

Lo and behold, I won the tournament both years! The funny thing was, the third-year Dave told me the sportscasters would not let me enter the tournament that year because I was not an employee. It seems I had crushed their fragile egos and beaten the so-called sports experts! I loved it. One of them is still there, and I am sure he would not remember that if we were to ask him about it today.

I have also won the tournament I am in now one time. But that was a long time ago, and I know I am in the hole if you add up all of my entry fees compared to what I have won. When I send in my ten-dollar check every year, I just write Donation in the memo of the check.


Now it is time to check my brackets and see how I have fared so far today. If you are in a pool somewhere and are doing well, Congratulations! If you are not doing well, just remember, there is always next year. -->
 
I just know it is a fun way to follow the tournament and feel like I am a part of it. I always like it when I beat the high paid prognosticators. We all need to remember, “In the end, only one team goes home a winner!”

On another note, I just heard the University of Minnesota Women's Hockey Team just won their second straight National Championship! Congratulations to them as they have their own version of March Madness!


Now it is time to check my brackets and see how I have fared so far today. If you are in a pool somewhere and are doing well, Congratulations! If you are not doing well, just remember, there is always next year.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike