How did you do? Did you ace the upsets and survive with minimal damage? Is your Final Four still flawless and read for the battles this weekend?
Or does your Western Region look like it went sunbathing too long due to all the red? Was Georgetown in your final four? Was Gonzaga your national champion?
Yes.
Yes.
AND ...Yes. I mean who steps out of bounds the second the ball is in bounded in THAT situation!?!? SERIOULSY!?
Deep breaths. I will get through this. And that's what this is all about. I will get you through this.
You might say:
"Average Bro! I am being faced with the deepest sadness of my life! I thought Notre Dame was a can't-miss-pick for the Final Four! I was so wrong! What qualifies you to deal with my sad, sad soul!"Well let me rattle back a little bit of my NCAA Tournament experience for you.
2011. Number 4 Louisville was my pick to take the solid march right into the National Champion spot. They faced off against lowly Morehead State in the first round. Who's Morehead State?! I didn't even look at the name when I clicked Louisville to advance! It was a no brainer! Freakin' Morehead State!
2012. My final Four Shaped out as Kansas, Mizzou, Syracuse, and Baylor! Baylor you ask? Yes! Because although he was not officially in DC yet, Washington had already traded up to the second pick of the draft to get RG3! And I was all in on anything RG3 Related.
Better still but not good enough. In a year where Kentucky was such a clear #1, there was no room for errors when it came to the final four. And I had made too many errors.
So, you see, I too have felt the cruel cold hands of loserdom grab my bracket and snap it in half. I understand, and I think I can help.
First, let me justify my failed picks with my awful sense of logic.
There was a great amount of insight put into some of my pics. I had seen Notre Dame pull off multiple overtime wins, so I figured they were a sure bet to make it at least one round. Despite Kansas State's terrible play in their conference championship, I knew that the tournament was a whole different animal and they had something they wanted to prove.
And as far as knowing what I'm talking about goes, that's pretty much where it ended.
True story: I have Louisville, Gonzaga, Georgetown and Miami in my final four.
Sad but True story: I have not seen these teams play a game all season until the tournament. I haven't really even heard much about other then the times when they each held the number one ranking for a time. I had some knowledge of some teams but I discarded all of that and went with my gut.
Here's where I say "Eh whatever! I made one sheet and failed on my own bracket challenge! So what?"
But I was so confident this year. I entered a real pool where the winner got some...peanuts. And I used my same bracket. No changes. No post thought tweaks. I just went with my original gut actually thinking that this bracket could be flawless! I had the golden ticket! There wasn't anyone who could tear me down!
But apparently there was someone who could tear me down. It was the entire western region and a few other key upsets. Upsets like Florida Gulf Coast. If you had Georgetown doing anything, don't feel like a failure. This is the most out of nowhere occurance in bracket history. It's not your fault. It's going to be okay. There's always next year.
Then Gonzaga happened. I didn't realize this until after I had already selected them as my national champion but they are a jesuit University. And the newest pope is a jesuit. So I figured, "Hey, I've got that on my side!"
I apparently did not have that on my side.
Gonzaga was a bad pick. Maybe if I watched any college basketball and didn't just go with my gut and the rankings I would have known that. But I didn't. I went with my gut, filled out one sheet, and set it against the wind! That wind turned out to be a bracket shredding cyclone (sorry Notre Dame fans) but it's alright. That's the fun of the tournament. There were probably way more brackets submitted to Espn than there are actual sports fans. It's one of the few experiences where fans can truly get involved in the athletic process. Any fans, no matter their passion, can engage and succeed in March Madness
I heard Linda Cohn sitting in for Collin Cowherd yesterday say that she did not fill one out. She said it would have looked awful and there's no point in it. Well duh!!! Of course there's no point in it! There's no point in sports either if you look at it like that, so why do people play them? Why do people watch them? Odds are, athletes are going to do terrible at some point in the career and it will certainly disappoint the fans. Does this mean we shouldn't play sports? Watch sports? Have a team? Root for our team?
In the grand scheme of things, the brackets we all fill out have no significance to the game of basketball. They don't even have any significance in our own lives. It's just something we enjoy and we participate in to have fun and maybe win some peanuts on the side. More than not, you're going to have an awful bracket. Out of the 8.4 million others out there, you're probably never going to have a perfect bracket, but it's fun to try. It's fun to tell your friends that this is the year and brag about it all up until the first error in the round of 64. It's just fun.
Don't worry if your bracket is busted. Your joined in company with about 5 million other people. And I guarantee you, there will be 5 million perfect brackets next year. So it's okay. It's not your fault. There's always next year.
And if you're like me, with bracket failure being a huge part of your past few years, just think about how AMAZING your odds are for next year!
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