The NCAA basketball tournament season is here again, and like many of you out there I was involved in one of those fiendish gambling rings known as the office pool bracket. I admit to watching a bit of the hoops over the course of an average winter and when the time comes to fill out the sheet, I have had a great deal of success, usually finishing near the top. Better use could of been made of the paper this year, which should have been thrown into the fire or used by monkeys attempting to write Shakespeare. Our simian cousins were more likely to produce a timeless masterpiece using their feces as ink than I was to win this year's March Madness competition.
I entered with a strategy of course, one that unraveled more quickly than a poorly knitted sweater. First off, never pick based on mascots, unless the school is represented by a man in a banana slug costume (in that case they are sure to win it all). Next, pick a couple Cinderellas, not stunning 1 seed vs. 16 seed upsets, but reasonable underdogs like 11 or 12 seeds. My poor lasses never even got to the ball, all of them going down like whores right before the rent is due. The damn pumpkin was full of maggots and wreaked of death worse than my grandmother's breath after her traditional post-coital anchovy repast. The slippers proved to be borrowed from a 6"6 tranny, no chance they would fit.
I played it safe in the later rounds for the most part, but I wasn't about to go straight chalk (all one seeds in the Final Four). Only one time in the history of the tourney had all four number one seeds advanced to semifinal Saturday and although it was last year that it had happened, I didn't expect a repeat. I calculated that in all likelihood two of the top teams would advance to that hallowed ground while the two other universities would be lesser ranked schools. For once I got something right. As of yesterday, two of the top seeds had been penciled in to visit the lovely town of Detroit, where the finals will be held this year.
Check out the movie Robocop if you'd like to get in the mood with some scenic views of Detroit burning to the ground. On the other hand, residents would probably rather you viewed Grosse Point Blank, which depicts armed assassins running through the halls of a suburban Detroit high school. That one's a comedy. Although in truth not as funny as watching a Detroit Lions football game.
As you have probably already gathered, the two number one seeds I picked to advance happened to be the two number one seeds that lost. Without any Final Four teams left to garner me more points in the standings, I am left in last place gazing at all the immaculate brackets that hang above me, hopelessly out of reach and forever denied me. At least until next year, when I will pound on you fools like Mike Tyson before his brain leaked out of the side of his skull in the mid 80s.
