Bracket 2013

The fun part, of course, is all the marvelous advice people give you.  For example, all the sportswriters in the know tell you not to pick Louisville to win it all if you hope to win your office pool, because everyone is picking them, so even if they win, you'll still be competing in a large pool, and will have to beat your coworkers on more of the other games.  Much better, they say, to pick an off-brand like New Mexico or Marquette, because if they win, you'll be the only one to have said that, and you'll be sitting pretty.  By that reasoning, I should pick Harvard to play Pacific in the finals, because absolutely no one will have seen that coming.

I know, I know, it's balancing act, where you pick a team with an outside, but still reasonable chance of winning, and hope to amaze your friends and win the pot if you're right.  But the problem is still as above: your team actually has to win for this to happen, and odds are, Louisville has a better shot. However, there is a temptation here for AVI 2013, because the math-heavy prediction sites have Florida ranked very high, and I was going to put them in the finals against Louisville. (Or maybe losing in the semis.) Following sportswriter logic, this would be a perfect time to pick FL for just that one last upset.

I picked Louisville in December on the basis of a stray comment, and rather resent all you Johnny-come-latelies.  And if I pick a Louisville - Florida final and that's what happens, I'm already pretty happy, and likely beat everyone I know, whoever wins.

Next there are the guys who believe it is more honest, more manly, more straight bat, to pick each game one at a time rather than work backwards from your winners, or your Elite Eight, or whatever.  Why in the world would that be?  Who are these people who make up these rules for everyone based on their own idiosyncrasies?

Well, I can play at that as well:  the only way that decent chaps fill out a bracket is to do their 8-9 seeds first,their 7-10's second, and so on.  I like Missouri, UNC, NCSU, and Pittsburgh.  Then, Creighton, SDSU, Iowa, St, Colorado (that last one was tough.)

Gad, that's boring.  Who cares about those teams?  They aren't going to win it.

You know that secret trick that everyone knows, that 12's beat 5's about half the time?  I was one of the first people on that, years ago.  This year I'm picking all the 5's.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention:  as before, I have not watched one minute, not even highlights, of any game this year.