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How to Win Your Office Pool
Happy St. Patrick's Day, or as I like to call it "Pointless Drinking Holiday #3" (the first two being New Year's and Mardi Gras). One good thing about this year's edition of St. Patty's Day is that it coincides with the beginning of the NCAA tournament and a time often called "March Madness" despite the fact that it lasts into April.
March Madness is a great time of year for everyone to pay their $5 "sports knowledge tax" to the person in their office who knows the most about college basketball. But for those of you who want to win back some of your losses from the past 10 years, I'll offer my tried-and-true, guaranteed-to-win strategy:
When picking winners, as when picking stocks, always be a contrarian.
If everyone is picking Stanford to win it all, pick Duke. If everyone is picking an all-ACC final four, pick only one or two ACC teams to win. In March, everyone suddenly becomes a college basketball expert even though they don't pay attention the rest of the year, so you should go against conventional wisdom as often as possible. Also, it's very unlikely you will win your pool as it stands, but you're even less likely to win if you make the same picks as everybody else. Go crazy, pick some wild upsets, and you'll even crash and burn or you'll win. Remember, there is no second place. Which brings me to this year's top-secret super pick:
Liberty(16) over St. Joe's(1) in the first round.
Yeah yeah, "a 16 seed has never beaten a 1 seed in the history of the NCAA tournament" everyone says. Which makes it a cinch that if it happens this year and you'll pick it, you have the inside shot at the pot over everyone who had St. Joe's going to the elite 8. Plus, St. Joe's has no size. No matter who they put on the floor, they are a team of Chris Hill's: erratic jump shooters who will score points when they are hot but who have nowhere to turn when they are cold since they can't get inside or make layups. A wise man once said: "If you live by the jump shot, you'll die by the jump shot" and St. Joe's will die early in a shocker to everyone except you. Money in the bank.
Comments
I've got Florida A&M over Kentucky. I think that is a good upset.
Wait, I don't have a bracket... Well, if I did then it would have Florida A&M over Kentucky, because I've seen Florida play, and haven't seen Kentucky.
And Duke to win it all.
Posted by: Nathan at March 17, 2004 3:06 PM
I've got my bracket printed and ready to go. Of course, I'm too cheap to pay for a bracket entry - so I'm competing against about 2 million other poor slobs on CNNSI's million-dollar bracket.
And I've picked St. Joe's. Not to win it all, but certainly not to lose.
Posted by: Brian at March 18, 2004 11:39 AM
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