It happens every year...

Ahhhh the tourney.....It is the perfect sporting event. 3 weeks of non-stop action. (well it stops on mon-wed, but you spend those entire days talking about the action)

The first weekend. 16 games on thu and fri. Oh man. The 2 best days of the year. Of course your perfect bracket dies at about 1:30 on thursday when the first 5 goes down to a 12. But everybody is still in it after thursday. No work gets done after noon on thursday.

Friday morning is spent figuring out staring at your bracket trying to figure out how you failed to pick the 7-10 upset when the 7 was playing in their first tourney ever and the 10 was perennial contender from a BCS conference. It happens every year. Every year you promise yourself that the next year you will take your time with the brackets. Examine the matchups closely. Look at previous tourney experience. Next year you, of course, do none of that and just put Duke all the way through. No hope of getting any work done on friday at all. You leave at noon to meet your fellow poolers at a bar/restaurant to celebrate/commiserate.

Fridays games go by in a blur. A 2 is down to a 15 at the half but blows them off the court in the 2nd to win by 20. There was a real chance at a 13 over 4 but the 13 missed its throws down the stretch to let the 4 back in. A 9 goes over an 8 on a buzzer beater and half the place erupts and half cries in their beer.

By the end of the evening youre drained. Saturday and Sunday bring 8 games each bit your bracket is in shambles. None of your upsets hit. You lost one of your final 4 and 2 of your final 8. Your lungs are still full of "bar atmosphere"

The most you can do is sit on the couch and detoxify while you watch the games. If things roll just right, a 7 beats a 2 here or there, you get a luck 8 over 1 to knock out alot of other peoples champs you can hop right back in it. By sunday night youre doing the calculations.

You already saw at least part of 48 basketball games. Theres only 13 left. Who has the same picks as you for those games. Are any of those people ahead of you? You cant win but you can still finish in the money.

So theres a hope and a dream still alive.....