March Madness

Every year my spouse, Martha and I and several of her relatives living in the Ottawa area participate in a contest to most accurately predict the winners in the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament.
Sixty-eight teams will be selected for the tournament on Sunday and each of us will fill out our brackets trying to pick the winners in each game. We get one point for each winner in the first round, two for each winner in the second round, three for each winner in the round of sixteen, four for each winner in the round of eight, five for each winner in the semi-finals and six for picking the champion team. If there is a tie in points, the persons coming closest to picking the number of points scored in the championship game is the winner.
The interesting thing about this competition is that those who follow USA college basketball the most closely are rarely the winners. Those, including pre-school and elementary school children who participate, who make their picks based on the names of the teams and their mascots are usually more successful. But it is all good fun, adds interest to watching the games, and we have a meal together after the tournament to hand out the trophy to the winner.
This year will be especially interesting for me since, having retired I can watch the afternoon games on the Thursday and Friday following Selection Sunday on St. Patrick’s day. Also, this year there are a higher than usual number of Canadian-born players on teams that have made the tournament (at least 12 and possibly up to 20) including two starters on Gonzaga which will probably be seeded as the number one team in the tournament.