My Career as a Psychic

Well, as I spoke of a week or so ago, I am running a little NCAA basketball tournament experiment. The results are shocking.

Some background: I have never been too much of a basketball fan. I never watch the NBA and rarely watch NCAA basketball. The one team I follow is never any good, so I spend most of basketball season wishing it were baseball season. However, every year it seems my office goes nuts over this tournament. So I joined this years pool with two entries. That's two out of 107, so it is a pretty large pool. The first entry, entry #1, was sort of my control group, where I actually tried to use my limited knowledge to do well. The second, entry #2, was the real experiment. I chose all higher seeds all the way through, and then went with end of season ranking for the final four, culminating with an Illinois championship.

Well, I just got the final 4 report, and my experiment was a semi-failure. Entry #2 is currently in the top 40, but not close enough to winning to prove that all of the armchair analysts wasted their time. Only most of them.

However, my original theory stands. Entry #1 stands a chance of winning it all! If Louisville wins it all, I tie and go to a tie-breaker. If Michigan St. wins it all, beating Louisville in the championship game, I win it all outright. I have blown 99% of the amateur analysts out of the water. I have made the ESPN analysts look silly. How demeaning to the experts it would be to see me, who could care less who wins this stinking tournament, take the big prize. It must be as painful as when women root for the Patriots because Tom Brady is cute, or when someone picks the Marlins because the have nice colors.

Thus my point is proven. The entire thing is a big waste of time. I'll follow up with a final report once this is over.