Some etiquette for the Madness
So everyone had their bracket filled out three days and I know I’m late with this, but I wrote this column a couple years ago and I always make it a point to revise and re-share it with friends every year. And you guys are my friends, right? Since we’re all literally counting the seconds until the Madness tips tomorrow, how about another column to kill some time until the tournament?
It’s March, and that means madness is only minutes away. It also means that last Sunday night, everyone from Digger Phelps to my grandmother filled out an NCAA Tournament bracket. (And grandma has beat Digger three years running probably because she doesn’t think every single team is “salad” and also understands how the bracket actually works.)
Somehow, the filling out of brackets has become bigger than the tournament itself. Heck, the President took a step away from hope and change and saving the world to fill one out. The brackets have become so big, someone needs to define some Madness bracket etiquette, and I’m going to do just that.
1. Limit yourself to one bracket. There is a reason this rule is first. It’s the most important rule, and if you just follow one, please let it be this one. Even if you’re in 14 pools, fill out one bracket, and send it in 14 times. No one wants to hear some guy say, “Yeah, in one of my brackets I totally picked Bucknell over Kansas! I’m so smart!” That means you picked it wrong 13 other times, you dolt. You haven’t called anything, you aren’t smart and I hate you. By filling out 14 different brackets, you’ve just increased your odds of getting at least one lunatic upset right.
(The addendum here is that if you enter in ESPN’s bracket pool thing, you can do more than one because money is at stake and you increase your odds. Hey, we are in a recession you know. You’re just not allowed to talk about any of your extra brackets.) Read more…
