Kansas didn't win; Memphis lost

It's taken me a day to recover, but now that I'm good, I thought I'd share. I'll start by saying that I love March Madness. Best sporting event of the year.

And every year, for about the 10 years, I've joined an NCAA Tournament pool that's run by a doctor that works with my mom at a hospital in the Chicago suburbs. This pool isn't your typical $5 entry fee, $100 payout. This is serious business. The guy gets over 200 entries, each at $20 a bracket (plus $10 if you buy insurance, which I won't get into). There are payouts for the leaders at the end of the 1st weekend ($200), at the end of the 2nd weekend ($400) and then for 1st through 5th place once the tournament is over. The breakdown is as follows:

1st place - $1800
2nd place - $900
3rd place - $650
4th place - $425
5th place - $350
last place - they get their money back

Well, going into Monday night's championship game between Memphis and Kansas, yours truly was in first place by 1 point. If Memphis wins the game, I take the $1800. But if they lose, I drop out of the top 5 (to somewhere like 16th place) and win nothing. Needless to say, I was a little amped at work on Monday.

I thought it would be entertaining for my friends to see me hang on every single play as it unfolded, so I invited a bunch of them to come watch the game with me at a neighborhood bar. And believe me, they were entertained. Just like the game, I was up and down - elated one minute, head in my hands the next.

Memphis was up nine with two minutes to go, and it was looking good. But from that point on, they played tentatively when they could have been aggressive and finished off the Jayhawks. And Kansas came back, forced OT, and Memphis lost. Which meant I lost too.

I was bummed. And then my mom, lovely lady that she is, calls me the next morning to talk about the game, which had to have been the first basketball game that I didn't play in that she watched from start to finish. We're talking, she's sharing in my pain, and then she drops this on me - the person who ended up winning was an 8 year-old girl who plays on the same basketball team as the son of the doctor who runs the pool. A freaking 8 year-old girl!

I just started laughing. "Of course she was," I said. My mom's retort, "Well, Jon (the doctor) says she's a hoops nut and that she picked all the games herself."

Wonderful - that makes me feel a whole lot better. Maybe I should consult little Miss Olivia next year before filling out my brackets.

-JT