It’s that time again.  March Madness!

Time to scour all of the data from the past four months for 68 different teams.  Time to be repaid for the countless hours of dedicated research, watching every conceivable NCAA Division I basketball game available to mankind since Thanksgiving-ish.  Time to pick 65 games correctly, ultimately winning the office pool once again.

I had you going right up to that “winning the office pool” thing, didn’t I!

Okay, back to reality.  Outside of the PAC-12, I can count on my two hands (and maybe a foot) how many games I’ve actually sat down and watched this year.  Since the PAC-12 teams are all seeded to be opening round underdogs, I’d say I‘ve got my work cut out for me.

Now that doesn’t mean that I didn’t try!  I was following closely for the first two months.  If I remember correctly, there were about seven different teams that held the number one spot during that time.

You think I’m exaggerating?  Okay, big guy (don’t get mad ladies, it’s just an expression), off the top of your head, go ahead and name all of the teams that have held that prestigious (or is it cursed?) spot, in order, since the polls first came out.

Go ahead……we’ll wait!!

Uh-huh.  Just as I thought.  You ran out of fingers and toes, didn’t you?  Don’t feel bad.  The experts haven’t been doing a bang-up job at all deciding who the top dogs are this season.

In fact, they still can’t seem to agree on anything.  During my forty-five minute trek to the airport this morning, the Mike and Mike show (one of my personal favorites) had about six different “experts” on their show.  Not one of them agreed which team would win it all.

In fact, most of them didn’t even pick a final four that resembled any of the other expert’s picks.  And these guys live and breathe this stuff!

However, they do argue about the usual stuff, such as “How did St. Mary’s make it and Virginia not?”  Not that I’m quite as ‘in tune’ as these professional prognosticators (how’s that for a fancy phrase?), but St. Mary’s made it into the “new and improved” round one, which means they get to play another team that has no prayer of winning the whole enchilada in order to see who gets the honor of getting destroyed in round two (formerly known as round one).

Oh wait, one of those experts picked St. Mary’s as a “very dangerous team – one capable of pulling off a couple of upsets”.  If that’s really true, why are they even involved in round one?  Aren’t those four games supposed to be reserved for teams that aren’t ranked in the top 60?

That leads to a much more important question.  Who was the genius that came up with this eight-team round one that nobody pays any attention to?  I mean, think about it.  Sixty teams are getting a bye in round one so that eight teams that wouldn’t make it out of the first round of the NIT tournament can tell their grandkids someday that they actually played in the big tournament.

Second of all, why are two of these games pegged to decide a #16 seed, while the other two games are to decide a #13 seed and a #11 seed?  If they are good enough to be a #11 seed, why in the world are they playing in round one?

Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest!  (breathe deep)  I feel much better now (breathe deep…that’s it…slowly)  My pulse rate is coming back down (in with the good…out with the bad)  Okay, you can let go of me now.

BUT I STILL WANT ANSWERS!  (Okay, I’m fine, honestly.)

Alright, let’s get to the picks.  Since we all know that it’s a crap shoot nearly every year (I know, Kentucky was a sure thing last year, but how often has that happened since UCLA in the sixties?) and most people are out of their office pools after the second round…..oops….. I mean the third round (formerly known as the second round – seriously, can we PLEASE go back to sixty-four teams?), I’m not going to bore you with my game-by-game picks

Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of my picks:

Surviving the first week and making it to the Sweet Sixteen will be Louisville, Oregon, Michigan State, Duke, Gonzaga, Wisconsin, Arizona, Ohio State, Kansas, VCU, Florida, Georgetown, Indiana, Syracuse, Marquette and Miami (of Florida, of course).

Surviving week two and making it to the Final Four will be Louisville, Ohio State, VCU and Indiana.

Ohio State will beat their conference rival Indiana in the finals to bring home the trophy.

(I know, you’re shocked that I didn’t go with St. Mary’s to win it all, aren’t you?)

Normally at this point, I would tell you to go and carve these predictions in stone.  But hey, it’s March Madness, not the NFL playoffs!  So I’ll simply finish with this brief disclaimer:

“I reserve the right to modify my picks every Monday until the 2013 champions have been crowned.”

Now ‘that’ you can carve in stone!