The Sports Watercooler

The NCAA Tournament--you are a cruel, cruel mistress.

There are various levels of disappointment in the Tournament. The silver lining being, there are various levels of enjoy it as well.

The First Level: your team. As a fan, it doesn't matter what else happens. Your bracket, upsets, Cinderellas, none of that matters more than your team. And after this weekend, only fans of 16 teams are happy.

Obviously, there are varying degrees of happiness/sadness here. Like if your team took a number 2 seed to overtime, only losing at the last second, you can reflect back on a good run, a memorable tournament, and gain some experience for next year. Or if your team was playing a team of equal talent, yet could only score 41 points in the entire game, it may take a bit longer to recover from that one.

The Second Level: your bracket. There is money and/or bragging rights involved. Without your school to cheer for, at least you can cheer for a more personal victory--domination for your peers. Sure I would trade almost anything for a Notre Dame final four appearance, and the feeling isn't anywhere as good, but it is sort of nice to check out the Bike in Trees bracket pool on facebook and see that I am tied for first place. (Tied with a one Andrew Chungchansat). Likewise, its nice to point out to everyone I meet that I picked the Davidson over Georgetown upset, and remind them repeatedly.

The Third Level: F You. This is when you did have both Georgetown and Pitt in your Final Four. When your team has already been at the opposite end of an upset. Think you have nothing left to cheer for? Wrong! Start cheering for everyone to be as miserable as you. Cheer for every underdog. Cheer for the most popular schools to leave. Cheer for mayhem in the bracket world.

The Fourth Level: Ignore the rest of the tournament. Basketball is dead to you until next November. Baseball starts in a week!