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March Madness 2004-03-28, 10:31 p.m. I absolutely love this time of year for one reason: NCAA basketball. There is absolutely nothing that compares to the thrill of highlighting a correct pick on a bracket, or watching a tearful Cinderella team cut down the nets at a regional final, or listening to a certain rat-faced coach whining about how hard it is to be a 1 seed every single year. I love the sounds of the season - basketball shoes squeaking on the court, shrill whistles, the shot-clock buzzer, the pep bands playing the fight songs and alma maters. I love the school colors on trombone slides and the stupid mascot face painting on each and every cheerleader. I love the superstitions and the coaches in their lucky suits and school ties. I love the questionable officiating when a half-court ACC team takes on a Big 12 team full of thugs and they battle for victory until the last shot of the game. I love staying up late to catch the games on the west coast and I love checking my brackets first thing in the morning to make sure I captured every score, every victory, and every loss. I love the cheesiness of March Madness. I love listening to Billy Packer and Jim Nantz bullshitting about Wake Forest and Duke while I’m doing menial housework tasks, thinking about how I could do their job better, and also, shut up, Billy Packer. I love Greg Gumbel and his insipid interviews before and after every game. I love it when CBS cuts from game to game, trying to ensure that viewers get to see the most exciting parts of each game. I watch the games live and monitor score updates online at the same time. I make bets on teams that I never cared about before mid-March. I call my friends and family and shriek “DID YOU SEE THAT SHOT?” more times than I can count. I bellow at officials about stupid calls, I demand to see instant replays, I sit in my armchair with my bracket in one hand and the phone in the other and a stash of cold beer is always in the fridge. I love that I find myself explaining the rules of NCAA basketball to guys at bars, and I love watching the games on the big screen at the place where I like to hang out after work. I love that I grew up screaming “FOUL!” at the television and that I saw Bobby Knight fling a chair at a player in person. I know dozens of school fight songs and I sang the Georgia Tech song out loud today in honor of their victory over Kansas. March means hating the Jayhawks but still pulling for the Big 12 to do well, even though my team wasn’t invited to the tournament. March means picking the right 12 seed to beat the right 5, and knowing the Kentucky and Cincinnati are the most likely to choke in the first and second round games. March means Alabama over Stanford, Xavier nearly beating Duke, and watching Bill Self and his team of pompous blowhards suffer an agonizing loss to Georgia Tech on national television. March means Carolina Blue and Demon Deacons and fearing the mighty Terrapins. It means better luck next year and Jim Boeheim and getting a cap and shirt right after the final buzzer sounds that proclaim your team’s victory to anybody with a television. It’s almost April, which means that it’s time for the Final Four and time for dreams to be crushed and championships to be won. I’m pulling for Connecticut vs. Oklahoma State this year but I’d be okay with Georgia Tech and Duke in the final game as well, because I picked the final four teams correctly for the first time in my entire life, and no matter who wins from here on out, I think I can win all of my pools. But for now, it’s still March, and in March, this is what I do.
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