I know people fill it out tons of brackets. But I think that's cheating. You should only get one chance. This year, to make things interesting, I used my sole attempt at prognostication to go out on a limb a bit, prioritizing interesting upsets as well as showing a little Pac-10 pride after our President saw fit to denigrate the conference in assessing the tournament:

In Obama's defense, I should make it clear that his dim view of UCLA & Co. probably amounts to fraternal trash-talking, despite his protestations to the contrary, since in dissing the Pac-10 so hard he also gets to rib his brother-in-law Craig Robinson, the first-year coach at Oregon State. Sure, the President says that he's trying to bolster the Beavers chances next year. If you stop to think about it, though, what he's really conveying is that their big wins this year -- most notably against my Cal Bears, twice -- didn't amount to much. Cleverly done, as one would expect of such a savvy politician. Obama's bracket is much safer than mine, certainly:

I doubt that many people have Florida State in the Final Four. And Gonzaga, once a trendy pick to go deep into tournaments, is now trying to overcome a legacy of premature exits. Missouri is also a stretch, but I feel like they have the potential to cope with Memphis, unlike some teams that are clearly better on paper. It's all about match-ups, baby:

If history is any guide, my bracket will be totally messed up by Saturday morning. But that's part of the fun, too. Since I don't gamble, my predictions are solely for fun. And what's more fun than being surprised? Unless your the leader of the Free World assigned the daunting task of cleaning the shit out of the previous Administration's stables, that is. The odds of being pleasantly surprised in that capacity are slim indeed.

Tags: politics, sports
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