With March Madness just around the corner, I thought it only fair to dedicate my comeback post to letting my loyal readers in on some powerful lessons that I’ve learned about filling out NCAA Tournament brackets. Unfortunately for all of you, everything that I know about brackets comes from nearly a decade and a half of watching my best friend cement his legacy as the Least Successful Bracket Picker in Northern Michigan history. In fact, some of the bracketeering strategies that you’ll find on this page are the very same tactics that landed Big Mitchy with 3 of the top 5 lowest scores (including last place and second to last) in the 2005 Harbor Springs Tournament Pool. It’s hard enough to win one of these things, but I’ll go on record to say that I think it’s even harder to get double last places.
Big Mitchy is notorious around the Great Lakes State for
using the ‘shotgun approach’ to his pool sheets; he enters multiple bracket
contests, and places multiple entries into each contest, adding up to anywhere
between 7 and 10 total brackets in a given tournament year. Call me
old-fashioned, but I’ve always felt that the spirit and sanctity of gambling on
the athletic pursuits of 19 year old kids is somehow tarnished when some bad
apple jumps in with nearly a dozen entries to increase their chances of
winning. Maybe old age has just made me cynical. When questioned about this
controversy in an exclusive interview, the Big Guy flashed an ‘aw shucks’ sort
of closed-mouth grin and conceded, “Well, I do just love filling out brackets.”
Back in high school, most of these brackets were entered into the Harbor
Springs Pool, and my grievances about his high number of entries were quickly
dismissed due to the fact that he never came anywhere close to winning on any
of them.
So then what do some typical Big Mitchy brackets look like,
you might ask? Here are some of his more common bracket templates (**Use at your own risk)The “Holding Grudges” Bracket
This one is simple: Every team that he hates or that has a player that he hates gets picked to lose in the first round. This strategy backfired tremendously in 06’ and 07’ when Big Mitchy’s legendary hatred of Joakim Noah kept him from cashing in on back-to-back Florida national championships. Duke is usually involved here, for reasons that don’t need to be explained. Luke Harangody and his younger, uglier, and less talented twin Jack Cooley have ensured that Notre Dame be on this list for the last 6 years or so as well. I’m pretty sure Joey Dorsey from Memphis was also part of this (which is saying something, because he also happens to be a Dunks & Blocks guy).
**side note, I’m sick of hearing announcers talk about teams that “play
the game the right way” or “the way it was MEANT to be played”. This usually
refers to Duke, Indiana, the Ivy League teams, and the San Antonio Spurs. It’s essentially a thinly-veiled euphemism
for teams that have a lot of Caucasian players who set the good screens and
take a lot of charges. Anyone familiar with James Naismith’s original game of Basket
Ball will find that the game was originally intended to be played 9on9 with a tip-off after every basket. There were no picks. There were no charges. You
weren’t even allowed to dribble. Oh, and they played using a soccer ball. With these criteria in mind, I don’t think you’ll
find a single team in the tournament this year that plays the game the way it
was meant to be played. Any idiot who tells you differently is sadly mistaken.
**side note #2: I always think it's funny how in some basketball team pictures, you can pick out the one guy on the team who forgot their jersey on the day the picture was taken and has to wear something stupid looking. Imagine my surprise to find that this type of picture day mental lapse has been going on almost as long as the game itself. You'll notice in this team photo from the 1908-09 season that one guy on the Swastika team forgot to bring his Swastika jersey to practice on picture day and had to just wear the plain tank top instead. That's gotta be embarrassing.
**side note #2: I always think it's funny how in some basketball team pictures, you can pick out the one guy on the team who forgot their jersey on the day the picture was taken and has to wear something stupid looking. Imagine my surprise to find that this type of picture day mental lapse has been going on almost as long as the game itself. You'll notice in this team photo from the 1908-09 season that one guy on the Swastika team forgot to bring his Swastika jersey to practice on picture day and had to just wear the plain tank top instead. That's gotta be embarrassing.
A Final Thought About Brackets
He seems like a good guy and all, but I think we all could do without
seeing an enlarged version of Barack Obama’s bracket every day on ESPN during
this year’s tournament. First of all, Obama is not as good at basketball as he
is made out to me. Despite the media’s claims that “Obama is a GREAT basketball
player”, this is a guy who has a weird one-handed lefty set shot, rode the
bench for his high school team in Hawaii, and plays once in a while when he isn’t
busy presisding over the United States. Secondly, as a general rule, I make it a point to never
take basketball advice from a guy who plays the game wearing the tucked in shirt and sweatpants
with elastic around the ankles. Call me prejudiced, but I just can’t do it.
Happy March Madness everyone; I hope this guide has cleared up any lingering concerns that you might have had heading into next week.
weird that the guys on the swastika team all look mexican... anyway i'm assuming that's the 1908 Notre Dame basketball team. great advice on the picks. INNIT H!!!!
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