The Sports Imbecile Does March Madness (Part 2)

And...we are off and running. Do you know what I am learning? That although sports imbeciles often, unwittingly, do very well in March Madness, they often don't do very well at all either. Alas, it seems that the pure fact of being clueless about college basketball does indeed mean that your brackets will bite the big one.

Teams I selected to do well that are now eliminated: Gonzaga, Penn, GW, Old Dominion, Stanford.


The good news: All of my final four teams remain in the game. At least for now.

While I am not in very last place in the office pool, I am pretty close to the bottom. I'm sure this fact is making my smug male coworkers as obnoxiously smirky as usual.

Tonight at happy hour, I will pour a 40 out for those five departed teams. Farewell Gonzaga, Penn, GW, Old Dominion and Stanford. I hardly knew ye. Quite literally, in fact.

The Sports Imbecile Does March Madness, Part 1

Don't ask me why, but I just filled out March Madness brackets. I haven't entered a pool, nor do I want to. Every year I am asked by some sports-nut who sees March Madness pools as a chance to rob me (the sports imbecile) totally blind. I know what they say about clueless people generally having good luck when it comes to that kind of stuff. I don't buy it. But I was bored and saw that the NY Times has an interactive brackets thing on their website, so I spent a few minutes impulsively choosing teams (I used "the force") and before I knew it, my brackets were complete. At times I chose based on seeding, other times I chose based on a desire to route against a team loved by an especially vile ex, others were chosen based on the inevitability of a few random upsets. I have even selected a "Cinderella Story." Winthrop is going to charge past the mighty forces of Notre Dame and Miami of Ohio to make it to round 3.

For the finals, I selected Memphis to face Kansas. I know nothing of Kansas other than the fact that they're supposed to be really good. Memphis I chose for sentimental reasons. When I was in high school, John Calipari, Memphis' current coach, lead the Minuteman of the University of Massachusetts in several very successful seasons. I went to high school in Amherst, where UMASS is located. Even as a disaffected theatre geek, I appreciated the success of the Minutemen in those years. The excitement they inspired in our sleepy little college town, which usually only got excited by things like Free Tibet rallies, was contagious.

Calipari lived in my town, a tiny hamlet called Leverett, home to only 1200 people. I rode the school bus with his kids. Although I never had reason to meet Calipari, I felt like I knew him through proximity.

Nostalgia informs many peoples' affinities towards the sports teams the fill their hearts. Therefore, I have no qualms in selecting Memphis to take it all.

Besides, it's not like there's money riding on this.

Updated! I lied. I joined the office pool. Now the guys I work with will have yet another reason to laugh at me. But I don't care. Clueless women have a long glorious history of beating sports-obsessed guys when it comes to this stuff. And, I am realizing today that I suffering from some sort of temporary depression and need a good distraction from my sorrows. And, it will give me something entertaining to blog about besides my somewhat broken heart, which I'm sure you all are tired of hearing about.

Go Memphis!