Let the Madness Begin!

It was a long time coming, but I finally succumbed to peer pressure and created my own blog.

Ok, there wasn't really that much pressure for me to create one...actually, there wasn't any pressure at all. I actually just decided that I wanted to make a blog, so I did. Simple as that-honest.

Anyway, now that I can't really think of any amusing or interesting excuses as to why I created a blog, I'm just gonna drop the whole thing - like right now - before I start rambling...which I'm sure I'm doing...right....now.

It didn't take long for me to know the direction I wanted my blog to go. Anyone and everyone who has ever known me knows how much of a sports fan I am; in fact, you could go beyond the title of "sports fan" and use something more along the lines of "sports enthusiast," or better yet, "sports encyclopedia." Ok, that sounded extremely nerdy, but by now, when it comes to sports, I'm beyond used to being called a sports nerd.:)

I think the best way to kick off my sports blog would be to ramble on about the greatest 3 weeks in all of sports: March Madness. It's America's version of the FIFA World Cup. It's the time when one shot can change an entire athletic program, (see Bryce Drew/Valparaiso http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzOkG7t7UfI), when David can slay Goliath, (Santa Clara over Arizona in '93) again (Hampton over Iowa State in '01) and again (Northwestern State over Iowa in '06) and again (Villanova over Georgetown in '85). It's when a song as terrible as One Shining Moment can become the National Anthem. It's when a state banishes you because of one play (Christian Laettner's Kentucky Dagger in '92 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY-iq58_oz4).

March Madness is the main reason why March is my favorite month of the year. There is no better sporting event that takes place in the history of all sports. This year, however, my journey to the Madness began back in mid-December.

During the last few seasons, I've attempted to fully predict every NCAA Division 1 teams' schedule, respective conference tournament, at-large bids and the NCAA Tournament itself. Last season my laptop decided to conveniently die on me in the early days of February, basically around my conference tourney projectios.

With a much more reliable computer, I was able to complete my predictions, from non-conference games to the Big Dance, and I was generally satisfied with how my predictions turned out...so far, at least.

-Out of the 65 teams that were called to the Dance today, I projected 43 of them in January.
-I picked Louisville as the top overall seed; they became the top overall seed after the likes of Oklahoma, UNC, UCONN and Pitt lost early in their conference tourneys.
-Of the 31 automatic bids handed out (conference champions), I picked 13 in January. By comparison, a typical analyst in January games would pick about 35-40% of the auto-bids.

I'm riding on my success to lead me to greater heights for the Bracket. This will be the first year since I started obsessively following the Dance that I won't be filling out the bracket by Monday. I'm determined to research as much as I can to unearth the Madness Holy Grail: The Perfect Bracket.