March Sadness

I love March Madness.  So many games, great underdog stories and flat out fantastic basketball.  After watching these kids (yes I'm old so I call them kids) play great defense and put their heart and soul into every possession, I'll never be able to enjoy the pro game.  I love pro football, hockey, and most of all baseball.  In basketball though, give me the college game anytime.

The best part about the tourney: brackets.  I've been filling out NCAA brackets for over half my life and have only come close to winning once (I picked Memphis in 2008 http://espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=293210235).  Seriously, once I played against just my sister, my wife and one of her girlfriends and I came in third.  However, never have I done so poorly in the first round as I did this year.  I always try to pick a champion that not many pick to hopefully separate myself from the pack in those late rounds.  I sat down, did some research and found that I really liked...Missouri.!    0 for 1.


Then for fun, I sat down with Brynn and we came up with our mascot battle bracket.  Wolverines vs Owls, Aggies vs Hoosiers, Gators vs Tigers; it's a really fun bracket to do and Brynn and I painstakingly debated every matchup until we came up with our winner: The Duke Blue Devils!      0 for 2.

So now that Duke and Missouri are out of the tournament, I find myself wondering how much basketball I'll really watch in the next two plus weeks.  I have five brackets out in three different leagues and I'm pretty sure I'm mathematically eliminated in all of them.  Couple that with the fact that it's hard to get T.V. time with three other people in the house--two of which cry when I turn on sports (you guess which two)--and I'm not sure I'm all that interested any more.  Am I really this petty?  That just because I don't have money or glory at stake, I don't want to watch?  I'm starting to think so.

Until today.  Today at lunch, I turned on the game while we were all eating together.  I craned my neck around the wall to watch Syracuse play Kansas St.  Brynn noticed and asked, "Daddy can I watch the baseball game too?"  After correcting her egregious sports error, I obliged and moved her seat next to me so we could both see.  We sat next to each other, ate our lunch and I explained to her why it's called basketball and pointed out the tall guys bouncing the ball and throwing it to other tall guys.  She sat with me and really watched, even after lunch, cozying up with mom on the sofa.

I think I'll keep watching.