Umbrella's guide to March Madness

When I was in college, I took school extremely seriously. Probably because I was married and had a kid, so I couldn't screw off as much as I would have liked to. I only intentionally skipped class a total of eight times in four years. They were the Thursday/Friday of the first weekend of the NCAA tournament each of the four years.

I love March Madness. I'm a sports junkie, and it is my favorite sporting event, bar none. Even the Super Bowl takes a back seat to this.

Every year at this time, you will see a bunch of articles floating around the interwebs to tell you how to win your NCAA pool. This will have some of that, but this is a guide to help beginners and experts alike. This guide is not necessarily aimed at how to win your pool, but how to get the most enjoyment out of it.

ALL PLAYERS

1. Join a pool. This is brought to you by the editors of DUH magazine. If you work anywhere with more than 5 employees, chances are good that someone will start a pool. It doesn't matter if you don't know crap about basketball. You can still have fun.

2. Know your reasons for playing. "Jeez Umbrella, this is stupid. I'm playing to win!" Maybe so, but if that is your reason, prepare to be disappointed. If you are playing in a pool with 20 people, do the math. Winning is nice, but if that is why you are doing it, you will not have fun. Good reasons are A) Talking shit to your coworkers/friends/family. B) Being able to have discussions with the cute girl you would never normally talk to. "Hey, nice pick with Central Michigan there. What made you pick them?" C) Having a long four hour lunch on Thursday with your boss at the bar. I've pulled this off. Bonus points for having him pick up the tab. I haven't pulled this off (yet).

3. Come up with a system. It doesn't matter what the system is. It doesn't even have to be logical. I've seen all kinds of crazy systems win. One time, a lady picked teams based on which one of their mascots would win in a fight. I saw an engineer who knew nothing about basketball come up with some elaborate mathematical formula based on the seeds. If it works, you'll feel like a genius. If not, then you are lumped in with everyone else who didn't win.

4. Pick some upsets. There is always that one person who picks nothing but the higher seeds. That person is a douchebag. Yeah, they'll usually finish near the top, but they never win. Besides, nobody will remember that you finished third from last when your picks don't work out. But everyone will remember that you were the ONLY person to pick Siena. Especially when you remind them constantly.

5. Don't be afraid to pick a team for a stupid reason. Maybe you have an ex that went to Kentucky, and you want them to lose every game. That's a good enough reason to pick against them. Maybe you like Michigan's uniforms. Go ahead, pick them. Maybe you think Jim Boeheim looks like an alien. Pick against Syracuse in an upset.

6. Make sure there is money involved. If you've got a few bucks riding on the games, they will become a lot more interesting. However, watch out for the pools where some jackass is just trying to rip you off. I can't see any reason to have more than a $20 entry fee, and even that is pretty high. Usually $5 is a good number. It will get the casual fans to play, and yet there will still be a nice payout for the winner.

7. Talk shit if you are doing well. This goes back to rule #2. Chances are, your good luck will end soon, so make sure you rub it in while you are winning. However, don't be a pussy if people talk shit to you when you struggle after that. You've got to take the bad with the good. On a related note...

8. Give props. Make sure you give someone a thumbs up if they pick an upset correctly. That way, you won't get everyone to hate you during your shit talking. Remember, constant shit talking = asshole. Shit talking mixed in with appropriate compliments = passion.

BEGINNER ADVICE

This section is for those of you who don't know anything about basketball, or how the tournament works. This advice is to keep people from laughing at you like an idiot.

9. Pick the #1 seeds to win the first game. The #1 seed has never lost to a #16 seed. Granted, it will probably happen someday, and if you pick it correctly, you will be a legend. More likely is you will be wrong, and everyone will mock that pick.

10. Pick a #12 seed to win. Every year, a #12 seed beats a #5 seed. You have at least a 1 in 4 chance of picking the right #12 seed. See rule #4.

ADVANCED ADVICE

11. Know who you are playing with. I live in Tucson, so everyone around me is an Arizona Wildcat fan, and Pac-10 fans to a lesser extent. That means they will pick these teams to advance too far. Even in a down year, I guarantee there will be multiple people picking UCLA to go to the final four. I will use this knowledge against them.

12. When looking for upsets, find little teams that can shoot 3-pointers. When the upsets happen, it is almost always because some team gets hot shooting the 3. Those are the candidates to keep an eye on. Especially if the team they are playing is a zone defensive team.

13. Ignore the "experts". I hear the same expert advice every year. Pick teams with senior guards. Pick teams who are hot coming into the tournament. Pick teams from power conferences. This is all bullshit. I overanalyze my picks to death, so I know these are complete non-factors. Your first hint that these guys are full of shit is after the first round of the tournament when they are all moaning that their brackets are in shambles. It's because they can't pick any better than the secretary who made her picks based on uniform color schemes.

14. Keep an eye on location. This can be big. If Ohio St. is playing in Dayton, that is essentially a home game for them. I'm surprised how often people don't look at this. Generally, if an upset is happening, the entire crowd pulls for the underdog. This will not happen if Duke is losing in Greensboro.

I can't emphasize enough how much fun this can be. I've been doing pools for close to 30 years, and everyone who has played ALWAYS comes back the next year. Most of them don't do it because of winning. They do it because my pools are a blast. I encourage shit talking. I encourage coming up with systems to use. And I can get an entire office of people who wouldn't give two squirts about college basketball for 11 months to spend Friday morning at the water cooler talking about that amazing finish to the Mississippi game last night. So if nobody in your office has a pool, start one. Promote it. Know your workers, and play to their interests. It will make the next month fly by.