Madness Sadness

Just in case some of you are new to the blog and wondering what we're going to do for the NCAA Mens' Basketball Tournament, the answer is...

In all likelihood, not nearly enough to make you happy.

You see, my own personal interest in the tournament is entirely limited to how far my alma mater, the Orangemen of Syracuse University, go. And after their overtime-riffic weekend in New York City, my guess on that amount is Not Very Far At All.

I could, of course, write the same piece that you'll see in any number of other sites in the next few days -- the wacky name column, the will this be the year that a #1 seed finally loses a first round game piece, or the gripe work over how the play-in game is not, in fact, worth anyone's time or attention -- but, frankly, there's just not enough time in the day to be all things to all people, and there's just too much to know about college ball to try and pick it up on the fly.

Which isn't meant to denigrate the power of the tournament, which remains, at least at the start, probably the best four-day stretch in sports. You'd also think that, given the ridiculous popularity of this thing, that the NCAA would learn a lesson and institute a similar set-up for football. Imagine, if you would, the interest and betting involved in a 64-team, single elimination tournament where teams are playing every few days (and no, I don't much care that some players might get hurt from the rapid turnaround, or that they'd miss too much claswork, or any other excuse you want to trot out there).

Now, you might still get some Tooly goodness on the tournament from The Truth (a Kansas guy) and Dirty Davey (a UNC man). And if you want to have a pool that's still in play in the late showing, just put in three #1 seeds and be done with it; you'll be right a lot more than you are wrong. Or you could just go ask that clueless woman in the Accounting department, the one that always wins these things, who she likes this year. (And you people wonder why I don't watch this...)

Bracket Challenge - Beat a 2 Year Old

There are all forms of March Madness pools out there - pre-fill brackets, fill per round brackets, blind draws, auction draws, do or die, head to head against the spread, and the list goes on. It usually consists of an office pool, group of friends or die hard junkie gamblers. When it comes to March Madness I'm probably in that last group. I usually enter about 10 different bracket pools, a couple of auction pools and a do or die pool. Multiple entries in each of course. And it goes without saying I play for fun because betting real money would be illegal and we here at FTT do not condone that sort of thing.

OK - back to the point. I decided that my oldest daughter was at the age where she was ready to get involved with her first foray into March Madness pools. She's two. Getting a two year old to focus on making picks is not easy. Over the course of the past three nights I was able to get her to complete her brackets. It consisted of me naming two team names and asking her to repeat back the one she liked best. Some of the picks were what you would expect from a 2 year old. Two picks almost brought tears of joy - her first round pick of #15 Belmont over Duke, and her second round pick of #8 Indy over #1 UNC. I asked her if she was sure she didn't want UNC and she said "NO, NO, NO Dada. NO UNC." The kid already understands integrity, maybe she can teach Ol' Roy about it someday.

So, fill out your brackets and see if you can beat a 2 year old at March Madness. Her picks are above in the photo - click on it for a larger size. Simple scoring rules - for each pick you get correct you will receive the following points: Round 1: 1 point, Round 2: 2 points, Sweet 16: 4 points, Elite 8: 8 points, Final 4: 16 points, Final Game: 32 points.

Good luck and here's to the future of our country.