Preparing for March Madness
So the great hulking beast of March Madness is coming. Don’t be afraid. Any dangerous situation can be faced head-on if you are properly prepared.
Here are some basic steps to follow for gearing up for the tournament and the inevitable office pool.
First, don’t be frightened by conference acronyms. You’ll hear people say SWAC and MEAC and OVC – no, these are not neurological disorders. They are conferences of small schools that will send one and only team to the tournament. No, you don’t need to know what the acronym stands for or where the teams are. Just nod and smile. Nobody expects you to know what conference Vermont or Tennessee-Chattanooga play in.
Second, don’t be afraid of the bracket. Even the smart people don’t get 75% of the bracket correct so if your picks go poorly, just give the name of the best team you had that lost early and say “Yeah, <team xxx> really busted my bracket up. I had them going far”. That way you blame everything on only one team and don’t have to talk about the other 43 picks you also got wrong.
Finally, unless you have been watching games all year you don’t know anything about these teams. You can do some research at the end of the season to catch up, but that’s like cramming for a final exam by learning an entire semester of chemistry in two weeks – you might pick up a few things to pass the class but nobody aces the bell curve that way. It’s okay to lose – we all do – just accept and move on. Remember, in 3 weeks after the tournament is over nobody will remember who picked what teams or why. It’ll be a faded memory.
I disagree with the fact that in 3 weeks everyone will forget who you picked. I still remember your brother picked Rider one year to win the whole thing. He used the logic, “It’s Rider or it’s wrong!” Turns out it was wrong as Rider, the 16 seed, got bounced in the first round. So if you WANT to go for broke, be aware that with big risks come long memories of obscurity.