From November through early March, I rarely pay attention to college basketball. For whatever reason, I can’t gin up anything resembling excitement and enthusiasm until the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament rolls around. In my not so very humble opinion, it’s the single best sporting spectacle this country has to offer: 68 teams, all with the hope of running the table and winning a championship. Doing that is a daunting task: in a one-loss-and-you’re-out tournament, the champion must win six consecutive games (seven if you begin in the play-in round) against competition whose degree of difficulty increases with each successive round.
Filling out brackets to predict the winner(s) is a national pastime and the source of all manner of lost productivity in workplaces from coast to coast. Every year, someone manages to pick a perfect bracket. They pick the winners of all 64 games (the play-in rounds don’t count for this purpose), which means they successfully pick Our Lady of Perpetual Motion College beating mighty Enormous State University in a shocking upset. Yeah, there’s a lot of random, blind luck involved.
For all that, what excites me most is the Cinderella factor: those lightly-regarded (or completely unknown) teams from small schools or less-competitive conferences. F’ristance, unheralded Mercer University beat traditional powerhouse Duke University 78-71 in the second round, using a late 20-5 run to stun the Blue Devils. Go figure.
Snap quiz: Who can tell me where Mercer University is located? Extra credit: Who can tell me anything AT ALL about Mercer? I usually take pride in knowing this sort of trivia, and freely admit I got nothin’. Mercer’s conquest is only one of several David-felling-Goliath moments in this year’s soiree. This means things are getting interesting…and also that my brackets are already shredded. I’m in good company, at least. Warren Buffett offered a $1 BILLION prize to anyone who ran the table and picked all 64 games correctly. After the first round, ONE entry out of the hundreds of thousands submitted remains unblemished. I was out of it by late Thursday afternoon, but I least I didn’t bow out alone; they are many thousands who could commiserate with me.
With my shot at a billion dollars folded, spindled, and mutilated, I’m left to enjoy the rest of the tournament with nothing at stake. Sometimes Cinderella can be like that….
P.S.: In case you’re wondering, Mercer University is a private university in Macon, GA with an undergraduate enrollment of all of 4,500 students. Feel free to use this information to impress the ladies. If it helps you get laid…well, you’re welcome.
