March Madness Regionals

Note: These regional distinctions have nothing to do with anything, much like the regional distinctions in the NCAA tournament. (If the game locations and teams playing are not going to be related to the region, why even name them such? I realize games get closer to relating starting with round three. But can we think of something more creative? You know that dozens of businesses would line up to put their name on the bracket. How about North Carolina coming out of the Coke Zero bracket? Or UCLA 'picking up their game' from the Enterprise bracket?)

East Regional - Switch Me Over Greg!
The best part of the opening rounds of March Madness is this: You never get stuck watching something boring. CBS is kind enough to pull you from a blowout to a more interesting game. In addition, the boring halftime show consists of watching another game in progress. It is GREAT! (How American do I sound right now? Talk about my need for instant gratification!)

I know that I'm not alone on this though, wouldn't we all like Greg Gumbel to switch us from boring circumstances at a moment's notice? (You know how he does it: "And we'll keep you updated on the action here, but we're taking you to this more exciting game.") The best example I can think of is the NFL. How many games happen each Sunday? And why am I stuck watching [you fill in the blank] losing by three touchdowns? Switch Me Over Greg! Take me to a game with a closer score. Wouldn't that be even better for NFL ratings? And don't we all want to miss the halftime show with 5 analysts breaking down the first half of a game we just watched?

Where else could this apply? How about those times when you start watching a movie but realize 20 minutes in that it is terribly boring? Switch Me Over Greg! You're switched to a smash-bang action thriller. Or you're stuck in traffic driving home from work? Switch Me Over Greg! You're cruising the fast lane to your family. I think Greg Gumbel would easily become the most popular person in America if this could happen.

Midwest Regional - Commercial Games
Arguably one of the worst parts about March Madness is that they play the exact same commercials over and over (and over). So I've come up with a game to combat this problem: Commercial Bingo. Use a regular Bingo sheet, but in each of the blank squares write the name of a commercial. You only need 25. And here they are:

Coke Zero prosthetic leg, Coke Zero Canadian, Coke Zero Real Estate, Enterprise truck rental, Enterprise 'pick-up-their-team', NCAA game in professional gear, NCAA kids getting 'baseball' cards, Axe funky to fresh, Subway celebrating Jared's 10 years, McDonald's Filet o Fish, Become Legendary with bells, Become Legendary with smashed slipper, Budweiser 'Dude' airplane, Budweiser 'Dude' Vegas, BUD-Light picks up girls, Suzuki 'Rated SX', Pontiac Video Game, TGI Friday's Chef Fiero, Outback Steakhouse 20th anniversary, Chase Credit 'I want it now', AT&T Jonny Knocker, AT&T Final Four tickets, AT&T Motorhead concert, Guitar Hero Legends of Rock, NCAA GPA on shoe.

I thought of the first 15 in less than five minutes, no sweat. I polled my wife to figure out the other 10, and I know there are still plenty more I'm missing. These don't even include the CBS commercials for their own shows. So you fill out your bracket... whoops, I mean Bingo Sheet ... before the start of a game, and 'X' each square as you see the commercial. (Notice I didn't say IF you see the commercial.) I'm going to try this next weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

South Regional - First Round Manifesto
I'm in a bracket contest hosted by the local sports radio station (96.5 ESPN). And out of 160 people, I'm sitting at number 1 after the first two rounds. Does this give me the right to write a manifesto about how to pick the tournament? Too bad if your answer is 'No'. Here are my tips for round 1:
Rule #1: Always take seeds 1, 2, & 3. (Remember, the goal here is winning, not calling an amazing upset once every 10 years).
Rule #2: Consider picking a 13 seed over a 4, but then think better of it.
Rule #3: Pick one 12 seed to upset a 5. (It didn't happen last year, but happened twice this year to make up for it.) Also take one 11 seed and one 10 seed. (I happened to call Davidson and Kansas State correct using this method).
Rule #4: Take two of the 9 seeds.

My advice for round 2:
Rule #1: Call 2-4 upsets.
Rule #2: Be sure that you have predicted at least one upset each day of play. (This is a lesson learned. On Sunday I had all the top seeds winning. In eight games someone is bound to pull off the upset, aka Davidson over Georgetown.)

I'll continue to offer advice as long as I keep my lead.

West Regional - Oh the Possibilities
Last night my sister and I tried to determine the total number of possible brackets one could fill out. (She is a math major in her Sophomore year at Greenville College). We never officially decided on a number, but thought that it probably fell somewhere in the millions or billions.

Before you discount that huge figure, think of this: Yahoo is giving away $5,000,000 to the person who picks a perfect bracket. Do you think they would even consider offering that promotion if there were only 1000 possible bracket combinations? My current overall rank on Yahoo is 12,197. I'm in the 99th percentile (only 1 percent of other Yahoo users have picked their brackets better than me). This means that 98% have a lower ranking. If one percent drops me 12,197 places, than that means there are over one million brackets submitted on Yahoo. Again I ask you, would Yahoo even consider offering $5,000,000 if someone could get lucky and win? I think not.

If you can figure out how many possible ways you can fill out a NCAA tournament bracket, please let me know. I'm guessing it will be only slightly higher than the number of times you see a Coke Zero commercial this Madness season.