March Madness

The blog has been a bit slow while my partner in crime is halfway around the globe. And the fact that football was the most exciting thing for us to write about has slowed things down too. So just a quick piece on March Madness for now…

Let me start by saying I love the NCAA Tournament. There are always a few underdogs who make improbable runs to cheer for. There are always the perennial superpowers to cheer against. There are always games with improbable last second circus shots to win the games, all kinds of unexpected endings, results, upsets, etc. It's the "Madness" in "March Madness" that makes it so much fun!

This year…. Eh, not so much.. There have been upsets, but not many of them happened in real extraordinary fashion on a last second shot. We've had 48 games so far, and maybe like 5 or 6 of them have had good endings. Not even great endings, just good ones. Somewhat disappointing so far. I can't remember a Tournament this unexciting. Not to mention that my bracket was demolished when both my Final Two (Uconn and Gonzaga) were eliminated. Ouch. But I think most people are in the same boat, which gives me a bit of comfort. Not much, but a bit. All the number 1 seeds are alive though, so someone who just picked the highest seeds is probably going to win this thing. So at least I can look forward to a few more good games cheering against the likes of Duke and Illinois and North Carolina. I don't mind Washington as much because when the hell have they ever done anything in the tournament before?

One last note… Getting old sucks… The first day of the tournament was on St. Patrick's Day this year. A perfect excuse to take the day off, stop by the parade, then spend all day and night in the bars sucking down Guinness and watching the games. So where was I? At work. Last year was the first time ever that I actually worked on St. Patrick's Day. This year makes two in a row. As we get older, it simply gets harder and harder to find friends who are willing to take a day off work to wander from crowded bar to crowded bar, paying way too much for badly poured Guinness in plastic cups. On one hand, I kind of agree.. I'm too old for that shit. On the other hand… I miss it, and think that you can never be too old for a day like that. Maybe next year I'll rally the troops and stage a coup and restore the tradition. Or maybe not.