March Madness

So...again it is time. The complaining of the “bubble” teams...the complaining of the “mid-major” conferences and their teams that did not win their conference tournamant, the complainin g of everyone about Dick Vitale is...well...it’s now. Every college with 18 wins is projecting their future and whether they can make the field of 65. The papers have speculation every day and in St. Louis where we know absent a conference tournament win that neither Mizzou or St. Louis University are going anywhere but the N.I.T. Illinois looks like they have a good shot and the darling of the midwest is the now dreaded SIU Salukis. The talk among the basketball obsessed is regarding The Misouri Valley Conference. I could digress (at length) on the Valley, it’s history and greatness and the stupdity of St. Louis University not being a member and instead playing in the geographically challenged Atlantic 10 conference but that is not why we are here today.


We are here to celebrate March and the the fact that is conference tournament time and soon will be the NCAA’s. Sure the major conferences and big name schools dominate but no where is any sport are we allowed something as beautiful as the all out March melee of the NCAA’s. I know the NCAA sanctions other sports but when you say the NCAA’s everyone knows your talking about the men’s Division I tournement. It is a brilliant spectacle starting out with Bracket day on Sunday March 11, which starts after the close of the final conference tournament game (normally the ACC). On Selection Sunday they pick the seeds and we get “the brackets.”
The brackets used to be the hallowed staple of the Newspaper. Newspaper sales doubled on the Monday after selection Sunday with everyone wanting their own copy of the brackets. At offices they were of course photocopied but now we have downloadable brackets and in a number of pools like our own KUBE Klassik Tournament (TM) you just go on line and point and click and if you want you can print out your picks after they are elctronically submitted. We do not print out the brackets at THE Wagenfeld Levine law firm because we of course paperless. The brackets are a beautiful thing. Their rorschrach like image is artistic and was formerly balanced until they expanded the field to 65. Still there is a perfection to the bracket sheet which cannot be nenied.

A blank bracket, with the teams for the first 32 games listed, number one seeds at the top of each bracket, number two seeds second from the bottom on the bracket are without a doubt a religious experience. Filling in a bracket sheet is an act of faith in no uncertain terms. No less an act of faith then any religious belief. Why did you pick Pepperdine to upset Washington State...because you had a gut feeling, because they are on the rise, because they have cool uniforms, because they have a cool name (the Waves), because Lorenzo Romar used to be their coach, because they have the most beautiful campus in the country, because they have pretty uniforms...because, because, because, because, because...But the inportnat thing is that you had a reason and when they pull the upset you are genius.

When I say it is an act of faith like no other you have to understand faith to understand the comment. The ability to believe in things unseen that you cannot prove. That is NCAA faith. 2/3 of the brackets filled out are by people who did not watch a college game all year. They will tend to do just as well as a seasoned professional. That is primarily because they have the seedings right there on the brackets. With this info anyone can pick the heavy favorites without any basketball knowledge at all. You know that number 1 seeds do NOT lose int he opening round. You know 2 seeds only sometimes do and from there on it is a crap shoot. The reason the 1 and 2 seed rarely lose has less to do with how good they are and more to do with how bad the 15 and 16 seeds are. I would love for someone to print up jumbled first round listings with no seedings and see what teams people picked. My guess would be UCLA, Duke, North carolina and Kentucky, along with Notre Dame (assuming they ever make the tournament again) would get the lions share of votes no matter what game they were playing in strictly on name recognition. Perhpas we will run a pool that way some day just to see.

I made two pre-season bets on LSU and Washington to win it all. Neither of them are currently ranked and it is probable that neither makes the dance but just like the brackets take faith, betting pre season takes even more then that, it takes raw stupidity. I watched about 30 college games on TV and saw the Billikens play 5 times. I will have read every possible thing on line and in the papers and mnarch Madness magazines and I will finish somewhere in the middle of the KUBE pool. Betting is after all what the brackets are all about. From 5-20 dollars and through the years many of us feel obligated to participate in several pools. I will invest about 100 bucks turning in brackets. I have won a few pools throughout the years and that having been said would still say I am way down on return on investment.

So, checkout the KUBE Site at www.kubeklassik.com. Get your money to KUBE Kollektor prior to the first tip off. Sit back and enjoy. KUBE Komments will be appearing at irregular intervals on this site.