8 Things That Always Happen During March Madness

March Madness is finally here.  As far as sporting events go, March Madness may very well be the best.  Sure, the Super Bowl is awesome, but that’s just one game.  March Madness lasts, literally, for weeks.  And from one game to the next, you never know what’s going to happen.  At least, you never know what’s going to happen with the actual outcome of the games.  But there are definitely a few things you can count on happening each year when March Madness rolls around.  For example…

Nobody Watches the Play-In Game

I guess this qualifies more as something that never happens, and that something is watching the play-in game.  It’s a fierce, no holds barred, leave nothing on the court battle of wills to see which team will advance and go on to have their asses totally handed to them by the overall #1 seed in the tournament.  Actually, I think they changed the name to the “opening round game” but I can’t verify that off the top of my head because I didn’t graduate from a shitty college and don’t have a gambling problem so I have absolutely no good reason to watch.  And unless you’re actually participating in the play-in game, you don’t have any reason to watch either.  Especially not during the final season of LOST.

You Will Cost Your Employer a Ton of Cash

You may be thinking, “hey, I’m practically useless at my job anyway, what harm can a little extra internet time do?”  And you’re right, you are useless.  But not every employee is, and when millions of those employees come together to blow off work and stream live games on their work computers, productivity drops.  A lot.  Some estimates put the cost to employers at $1.8 billion.  Billion!  Why most places wouldn’t just block access to websites that stream the games is beyond me.  Maybe they think strolling the aisles at random will allow the boss to catch underlings slacking off, but for those instances, CBS gave us The Boss Button.  Thanks, CBS, that’s almost enough to make us forgive you for The Big Bang Theory!   Almost.

CBS Will Inexplicably Stay with a Blowout Game While Another Game Is Going Down to the Wire

You know what?  Regional coverage can go right to hell for all I care.  If Kentucky is winning by sixteen and another game is on at the same time and is more competitive, I want to see that game.  I don’t care if it’s Devry vs. Suzanne Somers’ At Home TV/VCR Repair Academy, take me to that game, stat!  It’s March Madness, I want buzzer beaters and drama and players collapsing in agony after triple overtime.  If I want to watch a blowout, well, I’ll wait until the Championship game.

You Will Build a Huge Lead in Your Bracket Pool

You swore this year wasn’t going to be like the others.  Those sad years when your chances of actually winning any money with your tournament brackets evaporated before the first round ended.  This year, you did your research, you listened to the experts when they suggested that some upstart 14 seed was going to knock off that 3 seed and, by god, it really happened!  Sure, nobody expected that 2 seed to get knocked off by that 15, but they’ll get taken care of in the next round and you’ll be right back on track.  This is your year, stud.

A Cinderella Team Will Destroy Your Bracket Pool Dreams

Yeah, that 15 seed that got lucky and made it out of the first round?  They seem to have caught fire and are now balling their way right to the Elite 8.  And they have no intention of taking you with them.  It doesn’t actually happen every year, but it sure as hell feels like it does.  Especially when you find yourself on the business end of a George Mason style run to the Final Four that takes out the UConn Huskies who you just so happened to have picked to win it all.  Goddammit, George Mason!  I’ll never forgive you!

Some Jerkface With Eighteen Different Brackets Will Claim to Have Seen That Cinderella Team Coming All Along

Maybe the betting pool you’re in allows multiple brackets (which is a damn travesty, by the way).  Or maybe he finagled his way into having several different brackets under the guise of allowing his “family” to enter also (which is a total lie, by the way, nobody’s four year old kid gives a shit about March Madness).  Whatever the case, he’s there and he’s got one bracket for every conceivable combination of wins and losses.  He probably used algorithms and software and scientific calculators to set them up.  And now, he’s magically one of the eight people in the nation who has Winthrop in the Sweet 16.  And he refuses to let anyone hear the end of it.

A Woman Will Ultimately Win the Pool

Before any women reading this (as if women read this site) go calling me a chauvinist, please understand, it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to win a March Madness bracket pool assuming that woman is Cheryl Miller or Pat Summitt or even Hannah Storm or some shit.  But they aren’t the women I’m referring to.  It’s the women who pick their teams based on the what team has the better nickname or the best uniforms or some other form of ridiculousness that somehow aligns so perfectly that she walks away with $500 to spend on a new Coach bag.  It’s infuriating.

You’ll Swear Off Brackets Forever

After all of the insanity that trying to foretell the future of the NCAA Tournament brings, you finally decide you’ve had enough.  Next year, no brackets, no allegiances, just watching the games and enjoying the excitement.  It will be better that way.  And you’re right, it would be.  Unfortunately, it’s also a total lie.  Next March, you’ll be right back at it.  God love March Madness.