March Madness Bracket Help

It’s almost impossible to ignore all the signs that there is a major sporting event that begins today. Radio & TV talk endlessly about it, using such terms as “March Madness”, “Bracketology”, “Sweet 16”, “Elite 8” and “Final Four.” In the sports section of newspapers you will find almost daily this sometimes full page devoted to a funny looking thing with lines, numbers and names like Radford, Robert Morris, Chattanooga and Binghamton…isn’t that the former home of Billy Martin, Rod Serling and rocker Steve Perry? The answer is yes but for the purpose of today’s discussion that thing I’m talking about is called a bracket sheet and it’s where you’ll find Binghamton playing Duke in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

That’s one of 16 games being played today at sites around the country and there will be another 16 played tomorrow. Much like the Super Bowl a large part of the interest and excitement surrounding this event centers around office pools. Some of those will give you teams in a random selection while others are more complicated and require some work and a lot of luck. This is where I’m here to help you at the last moment as you only have a little while longer to turn in your bracket sheet and pick 63 winners, including a National Champion.

The key to doing well in these pools is picking the right upsets because there will certainly be a few of them, especially during the first two rounds of the tournament. If you look at the name of the schools on your bracket sheet you’ll see a number next to them between 1 and 16 and that’s their seed or rank in the region they are playing in. The lower the number the more highly regarded they are and you would not be alone if you picked all the #1 seeds….Louisville, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and North Carolina.

I’d like to pass myself off as an expert but frankly my track record is not very impressive. However for what it’s worth I’m picking North Carolina to win…well that’s in one pool. In others I have selected Memphis and Michigan State and I can also make a case for Villanova and Florida State to go far and I’m looking for early upset wins by Western Kentucky and Utah State. Actually the biggest upset would be if I won a pool