I Loathe Bracketology: A Screed

Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

Look, I love the NCAA Tournament as much as anyone.

I drove to Indianapolis last year and watched Arkansas beat Colgate, then sat a mile away (at what point are you so far up in the stands that you can no longer say you were there?) in Lucas Oil Stadium to watch Baylor win its first-round game.

I remember the days before ESPN, when no one televised the first two rounds because, well, who cares about those dead-wood games? I remember when ESPN bought the rights and immediately turned the first two days into a sensation, then CBS took the rights back and tried to ruin the experience by breaking to advertisements during those interminable time-outs at the end of games instead of switching to other tight games (like ESPN had done).

I was in a bar by myself, waiting for my girlfriend (now wife) to get out of classes, when Princeton nearly beat Georgetown in 1989 and I tried to explain to her why I was so drunk on a Thursday afternoon (“It wush in in incredible”).

I’ve been gambling on the Tournament since 1835.

But I hate Bracketology.

For the Love of Dick Vitale’s Soul, Retire the Word “Bracketology”

First, there’s the term.