Lost Time: March Madness
March madness is a time when we pick #12 Harvard over #5 Cincinnati because if any student-athlete can figure out the right angle at which to shoot a basketball, it’s gotta be a Harvard kid. But what we lose in common sense we gain in rationalization. We know we should pick #3 Creighton over #14 University of Louisiana at Lafayette, but we change our minds because Creighton’s “Billy the BlueJay” can’t possibly defend Lafayette’s “Ragin’ Cajuns.” I mean, come on now, anyone named Billy or any blue bird has no shot against anything that rages. That’s just not a fair fight.
March madness, for some of us, is lost productivity, as we miss deadlines or our staff misses them leaving us fearful of April hours, fearful our boss will see our computer is open to CBS Sports, not that powerpoint presentation he needed 2 hours ago.
We lose hair and finger nails when UCLA and Villanova are down 10 to agricultural schools in round 1.
Some of us pick only Big 10 schools to win since we went to Northwestern but we can’t seem to find them in the bracket, ever, so we default to schools like Michigan St. because a Northwestern kid would never root for Michigan. Some of us pick Duke and Syracuse because it’s what we know from TV, and for some of us it’s because we closed down 44s pub next to the Carrier Dome back in college.
A few of us pick against UConn only because we are University of Hartford fans and can’t stand that Connecticut occupies 90% of the Hartford Courant, even when they lose and the Hawks win. A few of us pick in favor of UConn, blindly having them in the Final 4, because we tried out once for that team and in our own mind had a chance until Donyell Marshall’s paws stole the ball from us in less than 2 seconds.
Some of us only pick teams if they are a state, like Florida or Arizona, rather than Wofford or Mercer which sound more like states of depression. “Hi Honey, you seem down today.” “Yeah, I’m feeling very Wofford.”
A few, admittedly, don’t know who to pick because our schools — Fairfield, Providence, Bryant – are borderline Division 1 to begin with and show up in the tournament so infrequently that we’re forced to adopt “new teams” that we can call our own.
We shy away from Wichita State who hasn’t lost but can’t possibly go undefeated but then we pick Ohio State as a sleeper and Wisconsin to win it all because we heard Dick Vitale say they are tough, that they have courage.
As much as we all have differences in our picks, and tendencies for who we like and why, we’re all connected this year by a common cause for another team, Danny and Katie Thibault, who are bravely, courageously marching on. We make our picks this year for that team. They are our sleeper.
Note: A special thank you to all of those who supported the Thibault’s and the Pan Mass Challenge this year – be it through the pool or in other ways. To see your picks compared to your competitors, you can Click Here