The Madness is Coming

Full disclosure: I don’t know that much about NCAA college basketball.

However, when have I ever let something as insignificant as knowledge stop me from writing a column before?

The reason I don’t know a lot about March Madness is that I don’t follow the game during the regular season. I am not watching a sport when the best players in the world aren’t playing. What’s the point of that?

I know March Madness is one of the (many) pre-eminent events on a degenerate gambler’s social calendar. In fact, I’ll bet CSzem has retreated to his man cave, placed some calls to his bookie, and will not return to civilization until Easter.

Unfortunately for your man Tewks, to be a degenerate gambler, you need money which is something that I don’t have. I consider myself to be a cursory viewer of March Madness. The first two weeks of play are always the most exciting for me because I can toggle between games and focus my attention on the close nail biters and possible upsets.

To keep myself accountable for my March Madness picks (guaranteed winners or your money back), I’m going to do this in stages. Today, I’ll pick the teams that I think will make it to the Sweet 16 and next Wednesday we will revisit the picks to see how I did.

How I pick winners is a very complicated scientific process that involves a number of large algorithms designed by a bunch of nerds at NASA. Basically, I pick the lower seeded team if the game involves a double digit seed. For all other games, I pick whatever school I’ve heard of before/would want to attend.

For example, if UCLA played the University of Alaska and they were both single digit seeds, I’m going with UCLA.

On to the picks:

Midwest Region

#1 Kansas (Some of you may wonder why I would rather go to Kansas than the University of Las Vegas Nevada. Because if I went to UNLV, I would be dead before first semester midterms)

#5 Michigan State (I saw all I need to see of Maryland on The Wire)

#3 Georgetown (I would love to be a Hoya)

#7 Oklahoma State (I have a soft spot for Oklahoma and the state’s Southern Belle inhabitants)

West Region

#9 Florida State (My upset special; and what a great place to go to college)

#4 Vanderbilt (It was them or Butler. I’m a fan of old money)

#3 Pittsburgh (I could live at Mario Lemieux’s house with Sidney Crosby)

#2 Kansas State (I am not going to school with a bunch of Mormons at BYU)

East Region

#1 Kentucky (John Wall is the only player in the NCAA that I’ve heard of before this week)

#4 Wisconsin (I wouldn’t really want to go to school in Wisconsin, but I have no idea what Temple is)

#3 University of New Mexico (It’s a depressing state, but it has great weather and I don’t know where Marquette is)

#2 West Virginia (Where the hell is Clemson?)

South Region

#8 California (I’d rather go to prison than Duke)

#4 Purdue (I am not going to an Agricultural and Mechanical school; I wouldn’t last the first day)

#6 Notre Dame (I would recreate every scene in Rudy every chance I could)

#2 Villanova (It sounds like a tasty dessert)

Good luck in your own brackets.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!