It's a Mad, Mad World

It's March again, which means that I have dutifully filled out my NCAA Tournament Bracket and joined my ESPN group set up by our friend from law school, Aaron. Despite my love of BYU college football (I'll watch other college football too, but really I'm only interested in BYU), I am not at all into to college basketball - BYU or otherwise. That doesn't stop me from filling out the bracket every year. Nor does it stop me from beating Matt every year we've been married - that's three years so far. So of course, I need to win this year as well.

Poor Matt gets so frustrated because even though I don't follow college basketball at all and he claims that my picks are made "irrationally," I still beat him every year. In my defense, I do not think my picks are made "irrationally." I put a good amount of thought into each pick. Here's a few examples of some of my choices and rationales for this year's bracket:

I've got BYU winning their first game b/c I went there, I'm loyal, and they are playing the number 9th seed. But they are losing to OSU becuase - c'mon folks, OSU is ranked #1.

I've got Nevada (#7) beating Memphis (#2) - a mistake I'm sure but I worked for a Nevada senator so I have some affinity towards the state and I've never heard of Memphis so they can't really be that good, right?

GWU is going to win it's first game, cause I'm an alum from there too and I've got to support em, you know.

UCLA is beating out Kansas to get to the final four because - let's face it, California is cooler than Kansas.

Winthrop is getting to the sweet 16 because I saw a headline that said that they are better than people think.

Florida is going to be in the final game because they're good and their football team won it all this year.

But they're going to lose to North Carolina because two years ago the Tarheels won it all just like I had planned and that helped me cream Matt. (I'm relying on them doing it again for me this year.)

Now tell me honestly, is any of this irrational? I don't think so. Ridiculous, maybe. Flawed thinking and lacking true analysis? Definitely. But not irrational.