Football Hangover Cured

For those of you out there who are struggling to cope with the fact that football is in fact over, tonight provided some wonderful medicine in the form of college basketball. Wisconsin battled back to get an overtime win over an Iowa team that was coming off back-to-back conference wins for the first time since 2007. Duke played terrible first half basketball against UNC, followed by an out-of-his-mind second half performance by Nolan Smith to get the Duke victory. Rutgers stunned Villanova on its home court. Notre Dame topped Louisville in overtime in a battle of 2 top 15 teams. Georgetown battled back late to get a road victory in Syracuse in yet another top 15 contest. Texas A&M won in overtime against Colorado. Yes, it's that time of year for the casual basketball fan to start watching college basketball so he can pretend to be knowledgable when filling out his bracket. Tonight should mark the night that everyone starts paying attention to what's been a truly interesting basketball season. As my old girlfriend once said, if tonight's events didn't get it up for you, I don't know what will...Wait...

Well, for those of you who haven't been paying attention, I'll give you some advice to help you beat my bracket come March.

1. This is the year a 16 seed beats a 1. College basketball has much more parody...
2. Texas still has no team chemistry. You remember when everyone said that last year, right? well, nothing's changed. At all..
3. The A-10 is deep with sleepers like most years. They haven't lost a beat...
4. The Big East is a weak basketball conference...
5. The Ivy League is stacked with athleticism this year. Yes, things change quickly, I know...
6. Jimmer Fredette will be ineligible for the tournament, so pick BYU to lose first round...
7. Every postseason game will be played in Utah this year. So if Utah makes the tournament, I'd probably pick them to win it all. Don't mind the 14 losses...flukes...
8.  Due to the high elevation in Utah, jump shots will be hard to make so pick the teams without good guard play. It's not even important in the NCAA tournament anyway.
9. Leave parts of your bracket blank. It'll make you look smart. Just do it. Trust me. It makes sense if you don't think about it.
10. Write in teams that aren't actually playing in the games. If they manage to get into the game last minute, you get more points.

There. Now you're educated on what's going to happen in March. You'll probably even beat me if you follow my advice close enough. We'll talk about how much money you want to gamble come tournament time.