March Madness

Unless you've been living under a rock, you all know that March Madness is in full effect and the brackets have been released. Aside from neglecting responsibilities such as work, school, and anything else you would normally occupy your day with to watch these intense college basketball games, many of you will be filling out your own brackets for various pools or groups or bets or whatever. Now, filling out brackets isn't necessarily considered a fantasy sport, but shouldn't it be? When you think about it, it's almost the same thing with the exception of you're picking teams instead of players. A lot of online platforms score your picks, just like you would get scored in a regular fantasy game. And in most cases, the winner is usually rewarded somehow and is talking major trash until next year. Sounds like a fantasy sport to me.

Brackets are interesting because they're so unpredictable, it's very difficult to predict a perfect bracket. The brackets are broken down into four tiers of 17 teams and the higher ranked teams play the lower ranked teams. The tournament is single elimination, so once you lose, you're out. There are always upsets and these games are the ones that can screw up anyone's bracket, including those experts who sometimes refer to themselves as bracketologists.  Most people usually put their marbles on the #5 vs. #12 game as that has been where the most upsets have occurred, but it can happen anywhere within the brackets. They usually call these underdog teams the "Cinderella Team," presumably because that team was invited to the "Big Dance," but wasn't expected to do anything.

This year most people including myself are running with Kentucky to take it all. The Wildcats are undefeated and victory should be certain, but for some reason it doesn't seem like it's guaranteed. I was watching SportsCenter this morning and my two dudes Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless were talking about how Kentucky should take it because there aren't any other teams who are on Kentucky's level. I agree, but keep in mind what I was talking about earlier with the whole upset situation. There aren't many teams who can pull off this kind of upset, and it won't really get interesting until the Final Four. Depending on how you pick your brackets, you probably have Kentucky, Wisconsin, Duke, Virginia, Arizona, Gonzaga, or maybe even Oklahoma going to the Final Four. All of these teams are very efficient on offense, but what separates Kentucky from this group is their immaculate defense. They have tall, athletic guys that has bought into the team concept of defend first. As we all know defense wins championships, but if anyone is going to take out Kentucky, it'll probably be one of these teams.

Even though I am a UCLA fan, I'm kind of confused how they got in. They did not have a great season but they got in as a #11 seed. They were on the bubble and in the Pac-12 tournament they lost to Arizona in the semifinals. For the first time ever, I did not pick UCLA to get out of the first round. With my luck, UCLA will be the one who scores the upset, but I doubt that. They're playing SMU and I have them going to Sweet Sixteen. Also, don't sleep on Northern Iowa. They have a #5 seed and even though that's considered a decent rank, should they win people are going to throw the Cinderella tag on them because they are not from a powerhouse conference. Interesting people got them going as far as the Final Four. I have them losing to Villanova in the Sweet Sixteen.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you who to pick because as I said earlier, the brackets are so unpredictable. That's why they call it March Madness, anything can happen at any moment. John Calipari, coach of Kentucky, is already talking about how they could lose, but it's very unlikely. I do know one thing, my friend +Stephanie Smallsen picked Duke to win. Good pick but not good enough my friend. Stephanie and I have our brackets on ESPN.com and we would love if you joined our group. Click this to join: LA to BC Worldwide. The password is champions.