Maybe This March Will Be Mad Enough For BC To Make A Real Run

It’s that wonderful time of the year again, when America’s economy loses an estimated $4 billion in productivity with no help from a recession because employees obsess about college games to which they have little to no connection.

And it’s not just at work either.  I remember when I was in high school, classmates brought in portable radios to listen in on games and the (younger) teachers would be asking, “What’s the score?”  When I was tutoring middle / high school kids in English, the phrase “March Madness” and “bracketology”–the study of NCAA College Basketball Tournament bracket–were on the vocab list.  To put it mildly, I had a little trouble explaining to a Japanese kid why a word of ESPN-creation was important enough to study in school.  Gotta love this country and its sports obsession.

I for one only joined this bandwagon recently, and I still don’t quite get what all the fuss is about, but it’s become an annual tradition to make two brackets.  This year, I thought I’m a little wiser because I’ve been keeping up with Sports Illustrated, but while filling in the bracket, I realized I don’t even know where half of these schools are located, much less the players playing for them.  Oh well.  I guess it’ll be like every year, where I basically pick as if I were throwing darts.

For the first time ever, I submit my brackets to public ridicule.

The first has BC going all the way:

In the second, I am less delusional:

I’d like to live long enough to witness the day that BC becomes the Cinderella Team.  It may be an oxymoron to call an ACC team a Cinderella, and certainly, BC is no George Mason or Davidson, but it is one of those schools that are almost always in the tournament and never gets picked to go far.  I heard at least two commentators call BC a “good, tough team.”  I bet you 60% of America has BC losing in the first round.

To be fair, BC hasn’t had the best track record (best performance was the Elite Eight, and they haven’t been there in over a decade).  But unlike other years, picking BC to go far this year isn’t completely delusional.  Remember:  BC was the first to beat North Carolina, at their turf no less, beat then-fifth ranked Duke, and lost by only one in a rematch in the ACC tournament, even though they trailed by 9 seemingly before the game even started.  Of course, this is also a team that lost to St. Louis and inexplicably to Harvard, not to mention won a nail biter against the basement dweller Georgia Tech, so really, you can’t go wrong picking BC to go all the way or losing in the first round.  And I almost did, but decided to give convert love for BC to at least a second round appearance.

Incidentally, this is the year that BC basketball really needs to step up.  The football team is in a state of turmoil, and the usually reliable defending national champion hockey team is on the bubble.  It needs to make an unlikely run at the Hockey East championship to cement an appearance in the NCAA tournament.

All hopes of BC athletics rest with the basketball team.

Let the Madness begin.