Random Guesses

And it's here. March Madness. That time of year where everyone has their sheets out, and half the TVs in America display some game or other.

Tonight is the first night of the tournament. 16 teams will play, with eight having their season ended. Games are on all day, which causes employers to loose around two billion in productivity. If not huddled around a TV, all those secluded cubicle workers will discreetly watch the games on the internet, with one eye looking out for their boss.

What makes March Madness so interesting is that it gets so many people involved in college basketball that have never watched a game all season. Millions of brackets are filled out, with none of them being perfect. The average bracket-filler-outer will tell you all of the reasons why he picked a certain team, or how he predicted that upset from the start, but its all a joke. Very few people are qualified enough to know how two teams will match up; its just dumb luck. There are so many upsets and different scenarios that all reason is thrown out the door, and your average Joe will base his choices on who has the coolest mascot, whose name sounds cool, who might have won the tournament 30 years ago or maybe they even pay attention to the little numbers next to the name of the college.

In making my decisions, I usually stick with the Big 12, maybe a few Big Ten teams. If any Iowa teams make it, I will choose them to advance, such as Drake this year (My cyclones didn't even have a winning season this year.) Last year I got 15 of the 16 right on the first round, and then it all fell apart after that for me. My dad ended up winning the family competition because he had Ohio State in the championship game, which came true.

I was watching a few of the games tonight, and I would have to say that the most exciting game was when Belmont the 15th seed came thisclose to beating number 2 Duke. They had the lead with ten seconds left but their defense came apart and Duke scored an easy layup. Belmont then missed a shot at the other end and came out with the possession arrow in a jump ball. Duke then stole the inbounds pass and were immediately fouled, but missed the shot. Belmont then had 2 seconds for a last attempt at the win, but the long shot before the buzzer rimmed out. I really wanted to see an awesome upset but it didn't quite happen. A 2-15 upset has only happened four times in history, with one of them coming in 2004 with Iowa State : (