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Hi. My name is Andy, and I have a busted bracket.
This March the madness has been ratcheted up several notches from a “normal” year. I can only imagine that many, if not most, of my readers have been left with brackets awash in red marks. It’s enough to make a guy start to question his basketballhood.
Despite the bracketology blues, the time has come for VTM nation to rally. Toss aside the failure to see how vulnerable Arizona, North Carolina, and Michigan State really were. Gloss over the inability to predict basketball history in the form of UMBC. Forget the fact that I’m currently losing to my girlfriend in the bracket pool….again (three years in a row now, but who’s counting).
What’s the point in wallowing in that pit of misery when there’s a Texas Tech Sweet 16 game on the horizon? The NCAA tournament isn’t to prove how much smarter you are at basketball than your co-workers. It isn’t to rake in the dough by placing bets on that “offshore” website. No, it’s the chance to throw on your school colors and gloat to others....cough, cough TEXAS....cough, cough OKLAHOMA....cough, cough TCU...about how your team is still playing, and theirs isn’t. That’s the true spirit of March madness.
Finally, for the first time in 13 years, Red Raider faithful have a dog in this fight. 13 years! 13 years ago, kids now in junior high weren’t even born yet. Tech being in the Sweet 16 means that we’re not just rooting for a university so what we wrote down on a piece of paper will be correct. We’re rooting for a university that we’ve invested our lives in. It means so much more, and I’ve missed having that feeling on the game’s biggest stage. Judging by the crowds that rocked the AAC in Dallas this past weekend, I’m again not the only one.
So, let’s strut our Tech stuff around the office this week and ignore that sheet on the wall with the bracket standings. Then, come Friday, we can kick back and enjoy the emotional dividend being paid out by Keenan Evans, Zhaire Smith, and the rest of Coach Beard’s squad.