Ignorance is bliss when it comes to NCAA Tournament brackets
My girlfriend is really nice girl. In fact, she’s sometimes too nice.
She loves to shop, wants very badly to get a puppy, and is a few weeks away from graduating from law school.
She is many things, but what she is not is a sports fan. Sorry, that’s an understatement. Her goal for last year’s football season was to be able to make one accurate observation. I made her watch a lot of football and, believe me when I tell you, it’s going to take a few more seasons to truly grasp the concept of a West Coast Offense, if you know what I mean.
(Time Out)
I would be remiss if I did not mention that she made her first solid observation during the Super Bowl. She correctly — in my HUMBLE opinion — felt that the roughing the kicker call on Adrian Wilson in the third quarter was a tad whimpy. Never a good sign for an unnecessary roughness penalty when someone who’s afraid of flies thinks you’re reaching for it.
Long story short (too late), she made good on her promise.
(Time In)
If I am Dr. Sports Fan, my girlfriend has some working to do before earning the title of Sports Nurse.
Of course, none of this stopped her from running away with her office’s NCAA Tournament bracket pool. Not only did a girl with absolutely no knowledge of college hoops win her office pool, she won it going away BEFORE the National Championship Game.
She did, however, receive some help along the way.
Starting with me: I told her to simply pick the school with the lowest number (that’s highest seed for everyone that isn’t a sports nitwit — sorry!). After that, I said she’d be better off picking her favorite schools from the Elite Eight on.
Apparently my advice wasn’t good enough for her, and frankly — with my track record in these things — I don’t blame her.
You see, I’ve been filling out brackets for ten years, and for ten years, I’ve been eliminated by the Elite Eight. This year I turned away from bracketology. Just didn’t seem right to just give away $5 (like I’ve done every other March since puberty).
Since my Take Back colleague Jack of All Sports is a fellow citizen of America’s Finest City, he was another valuable resource to her.
But it was when she went to her father that she got the clinching information. His main advice, “Pick UNC to win it all.”
Like the complete NCAA Bracket moron that I am, I disagreed.
“North Carolina’s best player (Ty Lawson) is injured,” I said, scoffing at her ignorance. “You should’ve picked Pitt.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
My girlfriend, of course, credited me for her victory — see, I told you she’s nice — but the truth is that she’s already smarter than me in this regard. You see, she made her tournament picks with the knowledge of three people (her father, Jack of All Sports, and me). Normal fans like us just go with what’s in our own head (which, let’s face it, is probably lacking many of its original brain cells), where as geniuses like my girlfriend make these decisions with the aid of three minds!
In hindsight, I’m so amazed.
So when you go to fill out your tournament bracket in 2010, don’t forget to ask the girls in your life. They may know more about these things than we do!
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