Because I don’t watch college basketball, I have a very random and unscientific set of rules that I apply to the tournament every season. It is a little less random than my mother’s “where would I rather take a vacation” system which won her an office pool in 2005… but not by much.
The rules are random and unscientific and would sound completely idiotic if I tried to recite them to anyone else, but they seem to work more often than not. Yesterday was one of those times. The rules don’t try to factor silly things like “records” and “coaching” and “skill”, but instead try to think like the idiot in your office pool that wins every year. She’s the same woman that wins your football pool every year and tears up the field in Fantasy Baseball. People over-analyze the tournament. They think that you can take a season’s worth of whatever and apply it to one single game and come out with right outcome. It doesn’t work. That’s what makes the one-and-done format so exciting. Any given Sunday, right?
So as of today, my rules have correctly predicted the two upsets thus far. Kansas St. over USC was predicted by “Take a school from a mid-western, cornfed, Varsity Blues state over any school in Southern California. When it’s cold, all these guys do is play basketball. It’s never cold in southern California.” My rules also correctly predicted A&M over BYU using the “I couldn’t find BYU on a map if you put a gun to my head, so take the school you’ve heard of.”
If the rules correctly predict Siena’s and Villanova’s victory tonight (using the “I know someone who went there and they’re better than a 14 seed” rule), I’m writing a book.
