March Madness Leads to One Shining Moment

Yesterday I was huddled up on my bed watching the bracket breakdown. It's an annual tradition. Typically, I sit there with pen in hand and fill out a bracket that I've printed out or that was printed in the newspaper, but this time I just watched. I no longer fill out paper brackets. No longer use my trusty pink highlighter to show my brilliance or my sad red sharpie to strike through my shame. It's all online now, and I'm finally okay with that.

Chef watched the first few minutes to see where IU fell (or rather to see how excited I was when I saw where IU fell), but then he was done. "It's kind of like watching the weigh-ins to a UFC fight," he said. And he was sort of right. But unlike a UFC fight, there's not the drama of who's not going to get in.

This year was fairly drama free. I was hoping against all hope that Northwestern would finally get in, but I knew the odds were stacked against them. Everyone likes to root for an underdog, though. Or Under-wildcat as the case may be.

Now it's just a countdown until my favorite time of year. And it starts so early here on the West Coast. but there's a blessing to that too, I guess.

Gotta go fill out my five brackets. With Purdue, IU and Murray State all in the tourney, it's gonna be an interesting year.Wish me luck!

In Case you Need a Hit of March Madness Before The Tourney Resumes. . .

I'll admit that I spent my fair share of time this weekend on the couch watching some March Madness. The closeness of the first weekend of games and the sheer number of games make them both ubiqitous and addictive. The only problem is just as you get used to having basketball to watch, it's Monday. And you're cut off again for several days. So if you're like me and need a hit of tourney, try this out. Did I mention that the Golf Whisperer is one of my favorite announcers of all time?

By the way, if you want to get a glimpse of Charlie Sheen's crazy bracket, check it out on the Dan Patrick Show web site here.

I've got a case of the slightly foaming at the mouth

In a typical year, I would be suffering on this Monday morning with a basketball hangover. I would have bleary eyes, too much pizza and the need to clap my hands together and say "Let's get fired up!" repeatedly throughout the day.

You see normally I would be suffering from a case of March Madness. However, this year's Madness has not hit me so deeply. I can't say that I'm not affected at all. I did sit in a parking lot between meetings and listen to Murray State hit the game-winning shot against Vanderbilt. And I do have a tendency to flip over from my regularly scheduled program at commercials to check scores incessantly.

And I know how I'm doing in my bracket (poorly, by the way). I do root for the underdog unless they're playing a Big 10 team and the my loyaltly lies with my conference. However, the tournament takes on a slightly less thrilling endeavor when you're team's out of it. Being a Hoosier fan, it's not many years of my life that my alma mater has failed to make the tournament. At one time, they had the second longest tourney streak (behind Arizona then. Now not so much for either team).

So for me, March Madness is kind of March Sadness. However, it's not nearly the sadness that hit me after the Superbowl. I still can't even talk about that one.