It’s March, and that can only mean one thing: Women’s History Month. Okay, two things.
The other, of course, is the NCAA Tournament, better known to women everywhere as “Those games where they bounce that ball and have those cute mascots and that my husband cares more about than me and yet I always beat him in the family pool.”
Yes, it’s that time of year again — the time when men all around the world forget about all the worrisome, trivial aspects of their lives, such as their families, and turn to a happy medium of seemingly endless basketball and State Farm commercials. It is in this mystical world of hoops that you can finally take pride in watching eight consecutive hours of television without feeling the least bit compelled to stop watching, because Morgan State is up by three against Michigan State with less than a minute to play and you’ll be darned if a school with a name like Morgan State can defeat one with a name like Michigan State — because everyone knows Michigan is a much more powerful state than Morgan. “Where is Morgan anyway?” you ask yourself, and when you ask your girlfriend if it’s that state next to the one that looks like a boot, she looks at you in that familiar way, and you realize just how dumb you really are. But then you remember that March Madness isn’t about being smart or dumb. It’s about watching TV, and boy do you love to watch TV.
Before all the madness gets underway, however, as a dutiful American citizen who values potential bragging rights and prize money above all else, you have the important responsibility of filling out those good ole’ tournament brackets. Perhaps the most integral part of the March Madness experience, bracket-filling is a chance for college basketball junkies to harness their precious knowledge of the sport and put all their countless hours of television-watching and subsequent in-depth analysis of every team in Division I to good use — only to cast it all aside in favor of the sage advice of ESPN’s expert bracketologist, Joe Lunardi.
Personally, though, based on 12 years of competition in hundreds of different bracket pools, I have found that there are three keys to winning:
- 1. You must be a female, preferably one with extremely limited knowledge of college basketball.
- 2. You must not base your picks on any sound information whatsoever. Forget about useless objective indicators like seeding, strength of schedule and defensive field goal percentage. The best picks invariably come from personal preferences, like those in reference to mascots, colors, cities and cheerleaders.
- 3. You must not, I repeat, MUST NOT, be named Nick Eilerson, because that sucker always loses, no matter how much tireless energy and devotion he has put into watching every regular season game he possibly can, no matter how many hours he spends scrutinizing every statistic known to man and no matter how many times he caves and gives into the advice of Joe Lunardi because, gosh darnit, Joe, you’re supposed to know your stuff! Come on, man, you’re killin’ me!
For me, not only does this tournament inevitably result in my defeat to the one girl in my bracket pool, it also leads to a marked change in my study habits. Basically, all my rates go up: my rate of laptop usage in class, my rate of homework negligence and my rate of deciding that watching Northern Iowa play hoops takes precedence over going to class. If by some miracle I do attend class during the first round of the tournament, it is certainly not for the purpose of being academically productive, as I can’t help but spend the entire class receiving constant updates from my computer and cell phone. My professors must think to themselves, “Why did he bring his computer to class again? He’s never done that before. And why does he seem to be paying more attention to it than me? Why is he receiving text messages every few minutes? Why is he high-fiving classmates randomly? Why is he shouting intermittently? Why am I standing here asking myself an inordinate amount of questions beginning with the word ‘why,’ when I am supposed to be teaching?”
If there is one flaw of this whole NCAA tournament thing, though, it’s that Duke is allowed to play in it. Despite having an obnoxious fan base full of completely arrogant dumb-butts, a mutant rat as a head coach (I mean, come on, there’s gotta be a rule against that) and Jon Scheyer, the Blue Devils manage to weasel their way into the playing field every year.
So here’s hoping they crash and burn in the first or second round again, preferably at the hands of one of those schools representing oft-ignored states like Morgan or Morehead.
Regardless of Duke’s presence, though, you know I’ll be watching. Because, by golly, Joe and I are not losing to a girl this year.
Nick’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at n.eilerson@cavalierdaily.com.
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