Pools and brackets keep students interested in basketball tournament all the way to April despite CU’s no-show
It’s about as much a part of March Madness as the actual basketball games themselves.
Filling out an individual bracket is a hallmark of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and, for some, what makes this sporting event one of the most enjoyable and exciting in all of sports.
Available after Selection Sunday, when 65 teams are selected and seeded for the upcoming tournament, brackets allow everyone–from diehard basketball fans to people who simply think Dick Vitale is just a DiGiorno spokesman–to participate in March Madness on a whole new level.
Will Beyers, a freshman political science major, has always enjoyed filling out his brackets.
“Each year (the tournament) is so different and you can never know what to expect,” Beyers said. “It’s something else competitive to do that’s always fun around March.”
But all pool entrants are not alike. While Beyers may casually follow college basketball, others, like Dunia Faulx, a senior anthropology and psychology major, filled out a bracket because “the group I was with said it would be cool.”
She hasn’t watched a college basketball game all season, and might confuse Joakim Noah’s name with the bad guy in Gladiator. Still, that didn’t deter her from entering.
“What’s appealing about it is probably the fact that they told me somehow that you’d win money,” Faulx said.
Some entrants research for days which team to move into the next round in their bracket. Others, like Faulx, take a different approach.
“If I liked their name or not,” Faulx said. “It was just sort of random.”
Lost in all the unpredictability and excitement of filling out a bracket is that when money is involved, pools are technically illegal. However, that little inconvenience hardly deters the masses, especially for CU students.
“It’s fun, people don’t really see it as an illegal act,” Anthony Malandra, a sophomore accounting major, said. “It’s one of those laws that people just disagree with and they’re just going to do it anyway.”
Faulx, even though not participating in any for-money pools, feels the same way.
“It’s so widespread, these types of pools,” she said. “It’s almost like LimeWire.”
For freshman Matt Moskal, a psychology and Spanish major, filling out a bracket just adds to the already thrilling experience of March Madness.
“I don’t care at all being in a bracket really,” he said. “I love basketball too much.”
Still, he is in three separate pools and couldn’t care less about legal issues.
“I think just putting $5 down and putting pen on a piece of paper isn’t a big deal,” he said.
For all the basketball he watched this season, he thought he’d do rather well in his tournament picks. His Final Four has gone completely amok. How many teams did he correctly predict to make it to Atlanta?
“Zero,” Moskal said. “I suck.”
And that is exactly what makes it so appealing for everyone. Sure, skill is involved, but luck plays a large role as well.
March Madness and tournament pools will continue to go hand in hand, like comparisons between Florida Coach Billy Donovan and The Munsters’ Eddie Munster.
Contact Campus Press Staff writer Evan Acker at evan.acker@thecampuspress.com.
