GARY SMITH: Not so bullish on brackets

“March Madness” doesn’t make completed list of priorities

I have a confession to make.

A confession of such a serious, norm-crushing, potentially un-American nature that it could possibly subject me to deportation, though I'm not sure you can actually deport someone who never actually "ported."

Yes, it's time for me to admit, in front of the Almighty and readers of this paper, that I committed an almost unpardonable transgression. I ... didn't fill out an NCAA men's basketball bracket this year.

I mean, I meant to. I was all set to. It was on my to-do list, right there next to sending out Christmas cards and returning that library book I checked out in high school and found the other day. OK, it was actually ahead of those. Priorities.

But for some reason, when the time came to put pencil (always pencil, because filling a bracket out in pen is sort of asking for it), to paper, I just kind of, well, didn't.

Realize, of course, that this breaks a streak heading well back into the distant past, before you could fill out a bracket on paper, on a laptop, on an Ipad, on your phone or by sharing your deepest, darkest hoops dreams with Alexa. Back when you had to cut the thing out of the paper and, therefore, unless you were willing to splurge or had access to a copier, only got one shot. Not unlike a couple of teams I could mention.

But, streaks are made to be broken, and this year I just didn't quite manage to join the ever-swelling ranks of those willing to throw caution, reason and the reality that they frankly had very little, if any, actual knowledge of the relative talent levels of the participants to the wind and guess wildly at the eventual outcome of the contests. Much like presidential elections.

Now, here is where, as a typical red-blooded American male, I should endeavor to pass off sloth as a virtue. Say, a principled stand on some issue, whether it has to do with college sports or basketball or nicknames or something that might suggest I purposefully chose not to participate in, on the grounds that doing so went against my sacred beliefs and convictions.

Lots of ammo this year. Apparently some of participants are involved in an FBI corruption investigation. And there is always the matter of players, some of whom will represent their universities for all of a semester and a half before departing for the NBA, not being sufficiently (in their eyes) reimbursed for their efforts. So if I wanted to jump up on my high horse this year, well, apparently I'd have a stable-full of choices.

But, let's get real here. Falling back on any of these to explain why I didn't do what almost amounts to a constitutional duty is a pretty much, well, two words, the starting letters of which are the exact reversal of the initials of tournament participant St. Bonaventure.

After all, I've voted for scoundrels for years. See that earlier reference to presidential elections.

I also used to fill out a pretty mean bracket (yes, the older I get, the better I was). That, of course, was back in the day when I traveled for work and wound up with a lot of time on my hands and a lot of basketball on the television.

Back then, I could break down the relative merits of San Diego State vs. Radford and knew my Loyola Marymounts from my Loyola Chicagos. I was, in fact, something of a college hoops expert. My bracket was still a mess, but at least I felt better about it.

Now, when it came time for the big games, I was out of the game. Unlike most of America, including a 98-year-old nun who apparently is still alive in her pool. Which, for me, is probably a good thing. I mean, its one thing to be able to turn your bracket into a party hat after the first weekend. It's another to get your rear-end handed to you by an almost centenarian nun.

But absence had definitely made the heart grow fonder and next year, I'll be back, bigger and better than ever. I'll fill that bracket out early, on as many formats as I can, as often as I can.

I'll handle it as soon as I get those Christmas cards out.

Commentary on 03/23/2018

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