Pick 'em

          A long time ago, in a community far, far away, your loyal blogger was a sportswriter covering the fortunes of the Imperial Valley College Arabs men’s basketball program for the Imperial Valley Press. IVC is located in southeastern California’s Imperial County and the basketball team is popular in the agriculturally rich region.

          Jeff Deyo coached the Arabs in those years. A very personable guy, Deyo turned out winning teams at IVC and made it fun to cover his squad.

          One day, Deyo posted a piece of paper on the outside of his office door. Printed on the paper was the bracket for the annual Riverside City College holiday basketball tournament, a 16-team gathering of some of the best junior college teams in the state. Basketball junkies flocked to the RCC tournament every season because the competition was so good.

          Scouts and coaches from four-year schools attended the tournament and it was a terrific indicator for which teams might advance from the southern region to the state championship tournament later in the season.

          A close examination of the bracket posted on Deyo’s door revealed his prediction that IVC would win the tournament. Not too surprising that a coach would publically predict success for his own team, really. It was surprising that Deyo filled out every slot, including the loser’s bracket for teams that lost a game during the tournament.

          And, a few weeks later, it was amazing to see that not only did IVC win the tournament, Deyo had every game right. Every game.

          Fast forward a few decades to this week when yours truly was challenged to fill out the 64-team bracket for the 2013 NCAA Division I mens basketball tournament in a free, online contest.

          No question about it, I needed help. How could any person, crazy or sane, possibly predict every game in the tournament? Where was Jeff Deyo when I needed him?

          Logically, you pick the favorites in the first round. But how do you pick the game between the eighth and ninth seeds? The seventh and tenth? No clue here.

          Maybe you try to weigh the traditional strength of a given school’s conference. Maybe you try to listen to the talking heads on television. Maybe you flip a coin. Maybe you take a blind stab.

           By the time the process got to the third round, this prognosticator reached the point where March Madness became a medical condition. Downstairs, Mrs. Leeway could hear odd sounds coming from our office. She heard shouts of, “I don’t know!” and, “Who are these guys?”

          When the selection proceedings reached the Final Four, things began to get ugly. Okay, uglier. The contest rules dictate that in case of a tie, contestants must predict the final score of the national championship game.

          Really? The score? The score of a game between two teams that no logical human would ever expect to meet for the national title?

          As they say on NCIS, “That’s just Ducky.”

          The bracket completed and submitted, your exhausted but loyal blogger slumped back in his chair and took a deep breath.

          “Might have been easier,” I muttered to myself, “if I had seen more than three games this year.”

          Curious? I picked Kansas, I think.

          Thanks for reading.