There is a method to the madness, after all

Each year, Facebook groups galore spring up announcing to those who care and those who don’t… Each year, Facebook groups galore spring up announcing to those who care and those who don’t that March Madness is upon us, and it’s time to pick our brackets if we so choose.

One feature on Facebook – Men’s Basketball Tournament 2007 – occupies a section located right above our walls so that none may miss it. It proudly displays every pool of which we are a part.

I should explain now that I love basketball. I do not, however, love watching it. Thus, I know very little about what goes on in the basketball world. But when an invitation to join a yahoo.com March Madness pool came freshman year, my love of the sport and my fondness for a little gambling took over.

That first year, I’m ashamed to say, I had a guy pick my pool. I chose someone who watched “SportsCenter” nightly, concluding that he knew a little more than I did, since I watch “SportsCenter,” well, never. And sure enough, that first year, two of my teams made it to the Final Four.

The next year, he must have been jealous of my fame because he didn’t give me quite as good picks. I was out by the Sweet 16. This may also have had something to do with the fact that I insisted he allow Pitt to go all the way. Even if I didn’t know much about the tournament itself, I had my loyalties.

But I didn’t win. I had a so-called sports expert picking my pools (not to mention his own, which he also lost), and we didn’t win.

This year, I’m determined to win my March Madness bracket (brought to you, of course, by Facebook). I want to repeat that feeling of freshman year March Madness. The time when I was doing so well, I put my bracket up on my wall. I highlighted my winners, I X-ed out my losers. My roommate, who had about as much interest in professional sports as I did going into all of this, would look at it confusedly sometimes, as though I had hung a deer head on the wall instead of a sheet of paper.

I want that exhilaration back. Now I just have to figure out how to win.

My first thought when it comes to all things sports-related is: Ask a guy. But that defeats my purpose this year. I don’t want someone who “knows” a lot about sports ruining my chances. So I did what one would expect in such a circumstance: I guessed.

Well, I’m not an idiot; I know there’s some method to all this madness. So I decided to follow some, not all, but some of the major rules: I picked a No. 12 to upset a No. 5; I chose one No. 1, but not all, to go to the Final Four.

After that I took Pitt absolutely as far as I thought reasonable: the Sweet 16 (pitting them against UCLA, which is what everyone is apparently anticipating). I wanted to allow them into the Elite Eight, but decided that I couldn’t make the same mistake I did last year, and left them there.

Of course, I can’t go into any further detail of who I chose, because then you’ll all win your pools as well, and we can’t have that. But I will explain my methods.

First of all, I didn’t pick any names that I’ve never heard of. That meant that Washington State won over Oral Roberts, Georgetown over Belmont, UCLA over Weber State (obviously), Duke over VCU (which turns out is Virginia Commonwealth University) and so on. If we don’t even know where a school is, they should not excel in the prestigious pool.

That took me a good way through, but if I got to a spot where the two teams had comparable rankings and pretty respectable names, I needed something more. I decided to take uniform colors into consideration. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you feel more scared coming up against an opponent with a black and red jersey as opposed to one wearing baby blue and white?

Anyone can watch “SportsCenter” and listen to mathematicians and look at past histories and try to logically figure out who will make it to the Final Four and who will win. Anyone can ask the following questions: “Does the team have home court advantage?” or “Even though they’re a No. 11 seed, have they been performing well under pressure lately?”

I don’t know or, quite honestly, care enough to look into all of this. I do however, care about winning. I’m sure the 1.5 million people who all played and lost ESPN’s online challenge last year and all the ESPN analysts who also lost cared about winning, too. But then again, they didn’t use my jersey method.

E-mail Lauren at lkm12@pitt.edu if you want her to pick your bracket and win.