Why I Love the Madness

I started this blog to satiate my addiction. I am a college basketball addict with no recovery in sight. By itself, ‘March’ underwhelms me. Why should I be excited about the muddiest month of the year, characterized by thaw, barren trees, not-quite-t-shirt weather, surprise snow storms, and the heart of tax season? However, if you add a little ‘Madness’ to the equation, my sentiments change quite drastically. It’s as if the concept of ‘March’ undergoes some sort of chemical change, resulting in a solution that bears little to no resemblance to its former state. It transforms from a forgettable month to my favorite holiday.

There’s a reason why clinics see an annual spike in the number of vasectomies every March. There’s a reason why 70 million Americans filled out brackets on ESPN.com last year, betting a total of over $9 billion on the results. But there’s also a reason why there is no documentation or evidence that suggestions someone has ever filled out a perfect NCAA tournament bracket. In fact, less than 1% of the 70 million brackets on ESPN.com in 2017 remained perfect after the first day. According to FiveThirtyEight, the odds of finishing with a perfect bracket when leaving every game selection up to a coin flip are 1 in 9.2 quintillion. A more sophisticated picking method that factors in seeding increases these odds quite a bit, bringing them all the way up to 1 in 2 billion.

So why are people so invested in an impossible craft? The answer, I believe, has far more to do with processes than it does with outcomes. We don’t watch college basketball because of any rational result; we watch it because its formula for madness, year in and year out, constructs a story arc that makes Hollywood shit itself. Hundreds of teams, thousands of players, millions of fans invested in a sisyphusian struggle, full of unpredictable drama, unmatched passion, hidden heroes and magical moments.

Welcome to the arc of March.