After a successful and entertaining abroad term in Spain, I have finally returned to Hanover (aka the frozen tundra) to resume my career as a dedicated student.
Because my class work in Spain was best described as nonexistent, I received a few rude awakenings during my first week back. I learned that homework in the real world is mandatory and that teachers here do in fact keep track of grades. Although I've managed to smoothen things out with my teachers, I am still adjusting back to life in the States.
Normally, one thing I could always say I knew, however, is sports trivia. Before my tenure in Spain, I would embarrass anyone who challenged my sporting knowledge, even worse than when Craig knocked out Debo in "Friday" (1995). Being in Spain, however, removed me from my daily breakfast of "SportsCenter" and completely eliminated my ability to keep up with the ever-changing American sports world.
But although I'm behind on stories such as the potential NFL lockout and the Barry Bonds grand jury trial, I can easily get up to speed after a few hours of diligent research on ESPN.com. I cannot, however, go back in time to fix my terrible NCAA tournament bracket.
March Madness is one of the greatest traditions in the world of sports. Very few events contain the same amount of excitement compared to what the tournament is an epic run of 63 spring college basketball games.
I take pride in my ability to predict a good NCAA tournament bracket. I've successfully chosen the national champion two out of the last four years and I normally finish with a bracket ranked higher than most of my friends' entries.
This year, however, my main bracket was an embarrassment. Although very few people picked the University of Connecticut and Butler University to meet in the championship game, my bracket was busted as soon as the play-in games ended.
It ranked in the bottom 12 percent of all entries on ESPN.com. Officially, I have the 5,216,605th best bracket on the site. My number is larger than: the aggregate number of tickets sold for the 130 games of the 2011 men's and women's tournaments. The total cost of the damage to UConn's campus during the student body riots after the men's team's victory over the University of Kentucky. And the number of cans of Keystone Light consumed by every fraternity and sorority at Dartmouth over a two to three-year span.
It's hard to be this bad. In order to save my loyal readers from a similar situation next year, I decided to jot down a few points of advice for next year's tournament. Although you might be skeptical of advice from a guy with a bracket worse than Snoop Dogg's and Kim Kardashian's, I promise you that I wrote down the opposite of everything I did this year.
Rule Number 1: Don't underestimate the Ivy League. I'll admit, I'm a little bit biased to favor the League, but the last two years of the tournament have taught us that League squads are usually underrated and are always a tough first-round opponent. Before Kentucky lost to UConn in the Final Four, 13th-seeded Princeton University played the Jayhawks tougher than any of their other opponents. Last year, Cornell University shocked the world by advancing to the Sweet 16. We do more than study at League institutions and it's time for the rest of the country to recognize that.
Rule Number 2: Trust the number-one seeds. Although this year has a number-eight and a number-three seed in the championship game, statistics prove that picking a top seed as the overall champion is a safe bet. Over the past decade, seven out of 10 champions were a number-one seed.
Rule Number 3: Don't put too many number-one seeds in your Final Four. Over the past 20 years, there have only been three Final Fours with more than two number-one seeds still alive. The best moments of the NCAA tournament are the incredible underdog upsets and usually two number-one teams are bounced by an upstart before the Final Four every year.
Rule Number 4: Make several brackets. It's next to impossible to create a perfect bracket. Play around with multiple combinations and see which one you like best at the end. You have nothing to lose by making multiple entries.
I hope my advice helps you next year. I'm counting down the 332 days until next year's Selection Sunday so I can redeem my subpar performance.
