An Email I sent to those in my bracket pool about last night

Last night I tweeted….If you don’t Love March, you’re Unamerican. I mean seriously, how can you not love a kid telling you “We even messed up my bracket”

And then Lehigh, who will always be the Engineers – how is that more politically uncorrect than MountainHawks, go out and beat the team that really has been the Dynasty of the College Basketball postseason in Duke. They’ve got a guard, CJ McCollum, who likely will be an NBA first rounder, who one of the main sports writers wanted to do a feature on this week. (I think it was ESPN’s Andy Katz) He said he didn’t want hyped up. He wanted his play to do that. So he scored 30 in the first round upset.

Twitter was ablaze, it was like Whitney had died all over again. But the thing I couldn’t figure out was – people were actually upset that their brackets were being ruined. Seriously? OK if you are a Missouri fan, or a Michigan fan, or god forbid a Duke fan – there was a reason to be upset. But if you were American – the drama and excitement of those moments last night was well worth whatever you paid to get into the pool to begin with. (Oh and don’t forget there will be a Sweet 16 pool somewhere you can get into Monday to recoup your losses). But seriously without nights like last night – nobody cares about the brackets anyhow.

The last time I had bracket disgust was when Byron Larkin and the Xavier Musketeers (another higher seeded winner last night) defeated Missouri and the Band-Aid clad Derrick Chevious in the first round from the Hoosier Dome or was it the MetroDome back when I was in junior high. Those were the days the tourney was on ESPN and we didn’t have cable – so I had to rush out of school (yeah they didn’t have early dismissals for the tournament then (and who said our School Board can’t get anything right?)) and run across the street to my grandparents just to tear my bracket up.

But that’s what brought me back. Kids like Byron Larkin.

And it’s what turns non sports fans into NCAA tournament crazies. It’s what makes everybody’s nails a bit shorter this morning. We think it’s we want to win. We think we want to hit the jackpot. The lottery is about the chance of winning millions. The NCAA tournament is about stories. Great stories. Enjoy them.

BTW, (that’s by the way for those of you who don’t Tweet or Text) – Brian Garman Jr, skinsfanz (used to rooting for the underdog) and Akio Toyoda are in the lead.

And also, its themountfanblog if you want to follow.



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