Keyboard Quarterbacks

By Mark La Monica

It’s a few minutes after 3 p.m. and the SEC and ACC champions have just been crowned.

It’s a few minutes after 5 p.m. and the Big 12 champion just secured a place in March Madness.

It’s a few more minutes after 5 p.m. now and the Big 10 champion is headed to the Big Dance.

But in which bracket? What seed? Who’s their first-round opponent?

Syracuse lit up the Big East and played its way directly into the NCAA Tournament this week. But how high a seed with the Orange receive on Sunday after being considered a bubble team on Wednesday.

C’mon CBS, I need to see the No. 1 seeds. Hurry. Now! Forget the commercials. No more bracketology speculation. They’re all useless filler. I need brackets! I need teams in those brackets!

Wait, it’s 6 p.m. and here comes Greg Gumbel on CBS.  Yes, they are finally here. My No. 1 seeds. My bracket. Madness has officially started!

And here come the 5-seeds flying onto the screen. Which one looks prime to lose to a 12-seed in the first round as happens every year?

Ooooh, there's the CBS camera in the room of  a bubble team. Hooray, that team made it. Elation all around.

Uh oh, there's the CBS camera in the room of  a bubble team. That team didn't make it. Dejection all around. Ouch. Sorry, fellas, but hey, you might get a home game in the NIT.

Any sleepers out there? Did anyone from the Big East not make it? How will the NCAA selection committee stack the deck for Duke?

For these reasons, and about 438 others, Selection Sunday ranks fifth on the list of best sports day of the year.

Selection Sunday sets up how a sports fan handles the next three weeks of the year. That’s the kind of power we’re talking about here. It’s amazing – and scary – how a piece of paper with a bunch of lines all leading to one final line in the middle can uproot a nation. So many people, so many brackets.

Handing in the answer key to your office pool administrator is the goal of every bracket filler-outter. Everyone thinks their Final Four is the Final Four. Everyone usually isn’t right. That’s why we have trial and error.

No self-respecting sports fan fills out just one bracket. It’s un-American. It's like washing your car in the rain and buying a Gulp from 7-Eleven.  It makes no sense and everyone who sees it will mock you endlessly.

In the month of March, I can set aside my traditional greeting of “What’s up, guy?” to people and replace it with “How’s your bracket?” or “Who’s your Final Four?” or “Which 1-seed do you have losing early?” Try saying that to your boss instead of “Hello” one morning in July or November and you’ll go one of two places: A state-sponsored shrink in a padded room or HR for an exit interview.

But March Madness is called March Madness for a reason. Schools such as Valparaiso and Bucknell and Vermont and Delaware State and FDU can give the big dogs of college hoops a run for their money on national television. In some cases, they can win. No one remembers how far No. 14 Valpo went in 1998, but everyone remembers Bryce Drew’s three-pointer to beat No. 3 Ole Miss in the first round.

That “One Shining Moment” begins on Selection Sunday, the fifth best sports day of the year.