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A Hopeless Duty, I Mean, Tradition Like No Other

Three out of every four years,  February is my month for watching regular season college basketball. At the end of it, I am on reasonably familiar terms with at least half of the top ten teams. But every fourth year, like this one, the Winter Olympics come along. The spectacle of insane daredevils risking life and limb on ice and snow is far more appealing than viewing a parade of time outs where alleged genius coaches assault their young charges with their mighty brain waves.

The above is a long winded way of saying I didn't see much college hoop last month. When the Olympic flame was doused, I was struck with the horrid realization, "holy shit, the NCAA tournament is in less than three weeks." So by way of compensation, I overdosed on conference tournament watching.

Conference tournaments for the one-bid set of schools you could not locate on a map are magnificent drama because the stakes are so high. Tournaments for the so-called power conferences provide more than the occasional entertaining game as well.  Unfortunately, for the reason I watched them, handicapping an NCAA bracket forecast, they are useless. No, worse, they are actively deceiving. A plunger who bases his bracket on conference tourneys has a swell chance of seeing it busted before dinner time today.

Let's take an example. In ITS conference tourney, San Diego State looked as if it could give the Lakers a good game. They are an 11 seed. Are they a value bet, or a conference tourney mirage? Beats me. One thing I learned a long time ago about sports gambling. Nothing is more unreliable than what one thinks is the evidence of their own two eyes.

A sensible person would probably not fill out a bracket in Winter Olympic years, let alone expose their guess to whatever corner of public stumbles onto this blog. But I've been doing brackets for 40 years, and making them public for over 30. I'd rather be thought a fool than a coward, I guess. That's not smart.

I am not going to do a full bracket analysis because only Final Four and National Champion count unless you're in one of those mega-pools, which is even dumber than what I'm doing here. Without confidence but with resolution, I will offer at least that.

Final Four:  Cincinnati, Gonzaga, Villanova, Michigan State. Villanova over Cincinnati for the title.

If, and of course I mean when, that forecast goes south, you can't say you weren't warned.

posted by Michael Gee @ 7:37 AM