The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Alright DLR, March madness is finally here with all the highs and lows of college basketball. This is my favorite time of year, where you have 65 teams looking to win the championship trophy over a 3 week time period. So in honor of this momentous event, we have composed list of "Why We Love College Basketball in the Month of March."

1. The straight up college competitive spirit- These young dudes don't get paid money to play (the schools are making a killing off of them), and receive very little fame but this tournament brings out the best competition in all from small schools like Morgan State to schools like North Carolina.
2. Besides the tournament of 64, March also provides us with all the conference tournaments. These are big because the winner receives automatic bids, so a team with a losing record could make the NCAAs if they can win the conference, which makes for big drama. Anyone see the 6 overtime game in the Big East tourney? Classic!
3. Underdogs a-plenty. This is always the story of the NCAAs - who will get upset by the lower seeded teams? It is a beautiful thing to see a team that nobody gave a chance to win pull off a great victory and mess up everyone's office brackets! Does anyone remember 11th seeded George Mason going all the way to the Final Four? Bet nobody had that one in their brackets.
4. The pure fun and strategy of filling out your NCAA printable brackets. This is one of the things I love the most. Sometimes it takes skill but most of the time just dumb luck in picking who will win the tourney.
   
5. The chance to win money for something you love. Most people have an office pool or go in with a network of people paying $5-$20 to see if their brackets will beat everyone else's. Some people do it for fun, and some people take it very seriously. But either way, if you guess all the right teams you could get a substantial sum of money for the big dance.
6. Time away from doing actual work in the office. This is one of my favorites. The Thursday and Friday on which the tourney games start are said to be the least productive days of work of the year in the US. In my office we turn on the game in the main meeting room and that is pretty much where I stay until the end of the day (Hope my boss is not reading this). Now, you can even streamline the games on your computer without anybody knowing.
7. Chillin' with your friends watching some good b-ball. This is a great time to get with your buddies and have some food and drinks at your house, or go to your sports bar of choice and toss back a few. Either way, you have 3 weeks of drinking and eating while watching free entertainment.
   
8. Selection Sunday starts it all. The last couple of conference tournament finals are played early in the day, then at 6pm the selection Sunday show comes on. On this program, we are allowed to see the teams that made it and the teams that just missed the cut. It also shows the seeding for each team and we even get a breakdown from the decision makers and why they picked certain teams over another. This is the first glimpse of the seedings and regions.
9. The regions play an important role in this event and is always an interesting factor. For example, Louisville is the number 1 team overall, so they are placed in the Midwest region so their fan base will be in full effect because they don't have to travel that far. The same goes with the Tarheels in the South - a very important variable in these games.
10. And finally, one of the greatest parts of this tournament is at the end when the winner cuts down the net and they play the "One Shining moment" song. While they play this song, they show the replays of all the great plays, moments, and players from the whole three weeks of competition.
    

So as you fill out your brackets, take time to think about the things that make this holiday "March Madness" special and enjoy the next couple of weeks...I know I will!

Click on this link to access a printable bracket for this years games!