How To Cure BBS (Broken Bracket Syndrome) So You Can Enjoy March Madness Again

Check out the best bracket left in this tournament.........Mine..........Sort of!

When you take the time to play lotto, and you are one of those people who plays the same numbers each time, you are passionately connected to each number as the lotto balls get called, unlike those quick picks where you can hardly remember your numbers. When hope is in the air, it hardly matters where those numbers came from, just that they have a chance to be called. Once the reality dons upon you (again) that you didn't win, you lose your connection to that piece of paper rather quickly.

Such is the nature of today's NCAA March Madness Tournament.  Every year is suppose to be that year in which we resurrect our sullen ego and reestablish our basketball prowess.  Back in the day, somebody you know was always the winner of these things.  Now, it seems to be the last guy or gal that you ever expected winning it all.  What is more frustrating is the method to their madness.

Some choose best uniforms, others lean towards hottest cheerleaders.  There hasn't been one of these quirky directions that has shown the power to win year after year, but the quirky road is clearly paved with more riches than the measured one that lead every analyst on ESPN (and Barack Obama) to wrongly choose Michigan State as the national champion..

If you would like to make the argument that this is a reason kids need to stay in college longer I might be inclined to take you up on that notion just for the sake of my Broken Bracket Syndrome (too many years of excessive indulgence in March Madness without a sniff of choosing one Final Four team).  Broken Bracket Syndrome (BBS) is sweeping the nation as we speak, causing millions who love basketball to throw away their useless lotto ticket of a bracket and to possibly lose a viewing interest in the proceedings overall.

From this day forward, I have found the cure for BBS.  Oddly, it derives from the same ideology behind the  lotto we play each week. The quick pick.

Thanks to PickMyBracket.Com (and photoshop), I have the closest thing to a perfect bracket that mankind will ever see in this era of parity in college basketball.

PICKMYBRACKET.COM allowed me to pick my most important statistic for victory and some quirky selection as the criteria for the final bracket it randomly produces. Each of my selections kept "Rebounding" as the number one statistic for victory on a list that included 3 other selections (offense, assists, defense).

For my brackets, the only thing I switched was the quirky option for bracket building, which included 4 choices; Mascot, SAT Scores, Co-Ed Hotness or Best Party School.  The chances of winning the NCAA bracket challenge is hard so hard, billionaire Warren Buffet put up a billion dollar prize for any one who creates a perfect bracket. With riches at stake, playing one bracket is about as smart as playing one lotto ticket

The 3 brackets I chose to follow all appeared plausible and calculated (kind of computer like), so I instantly appreciated the ease of creating something that I have unsuccessfully labored over for years. The only problem was that they each had a few problems.  In that dreaded first round, there are always games that could go either way.  On this website, the option to make minor adjustments to the random selections it generates does not exist (though I bet you it might next year).

For example, I am certainly a Colorado Buffalo fan who was happy to see them get in the tournament, but noticed that they received a life time achievement award with the #8 seed they garnered.  While it was easy to debate the worthiness of such a high seed for Colorado, it was hard to argue with the #9 ranking that their first round opponent, Pittsburgh received en route to a pummeling of the Buffaloes.

My gut said change that selection, but again,  the option did not exist.

My gut also said that UCONN had to be included in the Final Four of my bracket.  So, on this bracket (see above) I did switch out (photpshop) UCONN for Villanova (the computer selected Villanova instead). In actuality, UCONN was the only team that I can truly take credit for selecting.  The other teams were force fed by a computer that factored in party reputation as a key element in which team to choose. (Clearly CU was chosen over Pitt for this reason).

This year, my quick pick bracket gave me a reason to watch closely even after the first round was over.  If I had the foresight to put my money where my new found bracketology is, I might have made out like a bandit this year.  Sadly, this bracket will only give me remnants of my shattered ego back as I have finally risen to the top of my family bracket competition.

Does it matter that I essentially pulled the lever on a slot machine to win this time around?  Broken Bracket Syndrome is an illness that doesn't scoff at hope for a cure.