Sports Editor Justin Kline shares advice for future March Madness bracket challengers, and reflects on this year’s tournament.
As far as emotional roller coasters go, I don’t think anything in sports is on the same level as the annual NCAA men’s basketball tournament — better known as March Madness.
In the Plant City Times & Observer office, we know this well. Most of us participate every year and, after going in thinking we have all the answers, have days like this past Monday, March 20, where our brackets have more “X’s” than George Strait in Texas. Advertising rep Danny Crampton had to “X” out the entire East region of his bracket that morning.
Things don’t ease up outside of bracketology, either. My Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles made the tourney for the third time in five years of eligibility and, for once, drew a game close to me. I went to see them play Florida State on Thursday, March 16, and hindsight says I had way too much confidence going in. Unlike the last time I had the Eagles making it to the Sweet Sixteen round, FGCU couldn’t handle FSU’s size and NBA-bound Dwayne Bacon led the Seminoles to an 86-80 win. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy.
Then, on Sunday, March 19, South Carolina forced roughly one million turnovers and blew up Duke’s gimmicky 3-2 zone defense in an 88-81 win, and I was over the moon. Like most of America, including most of our office, I despise Duke basketball. Anyone beating the Blue Devils is good news to me. The loss officially destroyed my bracket — I had Duke beating North Carolina in the championship game — but it’s cool because it happened to Duke. Also, I have to give Al Berry props for being the only person in the office to correctly call that upset.
I don’t know what’s going to happen from here on out, but the ride should be a blast.
I like to encourage everyone to play the bracket challenge because, year after year, it proves that you don’t have to be a sports addict to win your pool. The “smartest” guys and gals in the room are often the ones with the most to complain about, and I’ve personally fallen victim to a bracket that was filled out based on team color and animal mascot preferences. Still, there are a few guidelines that anyone filling out a bracket should follow.
Pay attention to early-round match locations. For the first two rounds, if an underdog team is playing in a city near its campus (and the favored team isn’t), it is absolutely not a bad idea to pick that upset. In fact, I’d encourage it. For example, we just saw this in Duke-South Carolina, which was played in Greenville, South Carolina. A three-hour drive from Durham must have been too far for most Dukies, because that arena was packed with USC (and UNC) fans cheering on the Gamecocks.
Be kinder to balanced teams. If you hear that a team plays solid defense and has at least one or two guys who can light up the scoreboard on any given night, you’d be wise to pick them to last longer. I believe two of the most important things for any March Madness team are guard play and defense, as we often see the best tourney teams excel in both areas.
Be wary of the 1-seed ranking. As easy as it would seem to have the top seeds coast through the tourney and reach the Final Four, that doesn’t happen too often. Someone is absolutely going to lose on the way there, so my advice would be to pencil in a loss somewhere for at least one top seed you think is most likely to leave the dance early. There doesn’t even have to be any science behind it: you could just hate Kansas, dislike Villanova’s color scheme or think “Tar Heels” was the dumbest nickname North Carolina could have come up with.
Whether you win or lose your pool, March Madness is always a good time. Just embrace the “Madness” part.
