March Madness Baby!
Continuing the theme of sports posts, tonight I took the opportunity to involve the entire family in a little March Madness.
I know that I am not alone in saying that the kickoff to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament - aka March Madness - is one of the best sporting events of the year.
Office productivity goes into the toilet as everyone monitors their first round picks - which will likely be even worse now that all of the games will be available online for those stuck in an office. Seasoned sports pros think they have the office pool locked up, only to see something like the American Eagles upset the Tennessee Volunteers in the 1st round.
With an upcoming vacation planned to Disney World, I made the offer to the family that we would all complete a bracket and whoever gets more points than me wins a Disney Dollar for the trip. Not big stakes but it was enough to get everyone interested, including my wife.
While I poured over the matchups and evaluated the statistics and recent trends, my wife and kids opted for the uber-scientific method of picking the team names and mascots that they liked the best.
This certainly resulted in a few interesting selections - as my youngest son is currently stuck on eagles, which is why he has Marquette beating Winthrop in the final game! My oldest son looked more at the rankings, often selecting the team with the higher seed but scattering in a few upsets as well. My wife, much like my youngest son, went with her favorite team mascot and has a Wildcat matchup in the finals.
Here are the Final Four predictions in our household:
Youngest Son - Champion: Marquette
F4: Winthrop over Kent St.
F4: Marquette over Connecticut
Champion: Marquette over Winthrop
Oldest Son - Champion: Duke
F4: Kansas over Tennessee
F4: Duke over Texas
Champion: Duke over Kansas
Wife - Champion: Villanova
F4: Villanova over Tennessee
F4: Kentucky over Duke
Champion: Villanova over Kentucky
Me - Champion: Memphis
F4: Wisconsin over Louisville
F4: Memphis over UCLA
Champion: Memphis over Wisconsin
Who do you think stands the best chance to win?
I think your oldest son has you all beaten. I’m with UCLA. No one likes North Carolina?
I see North Carolina getting upset by Indiana, which means I will probably be wrong and NC will be in the Final Four, lol.
I’m going with UMBC all the way…haha, they have no chance but I’m an alumni
Lol, my youngest son actually has them winning the first two rounds I believe so you will have some support in cheering for UMBC.
This is the time of year that I wish I had gone to a major Division I college as I think it would be cool to have a team to really pull for in the tourney. Even though it would screw my bracket, maybe I’ll adopt UMBC as well.
Haha a fan by association. In all reality I didn’t even like the school that much, I would have been much happier going to the College Park campus over the Baltimore County one for University of Maryland.
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