The SaniTERRYum VI: The Madness of March

“The only difference between myself and a madman is that I AM NOT MAD!” -Salvador Dali

That magical time of year is upon us once again, hoop heads: the most wonderful time of the sports year when everyone becomes a college basketball “fan,” and the bracket racket gets un-drownoutably loud.

This is the best time of year to visit Cad T. Wasp’s The SaniTERRYum. Madness comes into full bloom by the end of March, and sports’ true unpredictable nature is on full display. You go to New England in the fall for the foliage. You leave Chicago in winter for the beaches of California and Florida. You come to The SaniTERRYum in March for the madness. And you stay for the…wait, why are you still here?

Oh of course, The Madness of March! By the time you read this, your bracket could very well be abundantly busted to smithereens. Or you could be on pace for a handsome payout. Here lies the heartbreaking beauty of March’s madness. How many brackets are you filling out? Who’s going to upset who? Yadda, yadda, yadda. Just enjoy the fact that we get a tournament at the end of the basketball season and not some ridiculous math equation that is the bullshit BCS. This is why  they should always play the games. Anything can happen, and you can’t put anything past anyone. I may submit brackets to several sources, but it is usually the same bracket. None of this, “I’ve got so and so in this bracket and so and so in that bracket.” One bracket. One prediction. Why would you get to make multiple predictions? Kind of takes away from the integrity of your selections, no?

I probably get my good sports gambling acumen from my dad. Growing up, he and I would rip out our brackets from the Sun-Times’ sports section and take our picks on every game, down to the NCAA Champion. I have picked North Carolina to win it all every year for as long as I can remember, and the nice thing about that is I end up being right every six to twelve years. Anyway, we’d fill out our brackets, and then we’d determine the stakes. No matter how well you predicted the Sweet 16, the Elite 8 or the Final 4, the only way you won was if your pick as champion withstood the test of the tournament of tournaments to be crowned champ. My prize was always something along the lines of a pullover Starter jacket or a new pair of shoes or a Georgetown Hoyas hat. He’d always end up getting me what I desired as winner of our bet regardless of win or lose, but it was always so much more rewarding when I actually won the whole thing on my own accord.

That’s how March Madness began for me. Father/son bonding over light sports gambling. I was probably eight or nine years old, already a full-blown basketball nerd. I don’t know if my dad ever beat me in those pools, because I definitely don’t recollect him collecting any winnings from me-his only son. To this day though, I still recall fondly visiting on weekends with Dad, catching the Tar Heels with Dick “Yea Bay-Bee” Vitale. They’ll always be my team, and I’m picking Harrison, Roy and The Tar Heels this year to cut down the nets in New Orleans.

And the tournament has its teams, its usual suspects year after year. There’s a reason for that, and it’s called recruiting. There’s a reason Freshman/Player of the Year Anthony Davis spurned hometown Chicago and Illinois schools for Calipari and Kentucky. Same goes for Derrick Rose and all other Chicago prep phenoms. Recruiting is the reason the top seeds go to the Kentuckys, North Carolinas, Syracuses and Michigan States of the college basketball world. There’s a reason Tom Izzo, Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim, and Coach K perennially attract the top recruiting classes and remain the elite programs of the NCAA

The recruiting process only gets you so far though. Just ask Bill (and his choking) Self. You can practically pencil Kansas in for an early exit every year, no matter how good their regular seasons look. The beauty of a tournament at the end of the season lies in the opportunity for schools like VCU, George Mason, and Butler. The opportunity for the upper echelon schools to prove themselves is a beautiful thing, too. It’s still very survival of the fittest, very only the strong survive.

In The SaniTERRYum, anything is possible and interpretation is open for business. Just like the rigors and excitement of the NCAA Tournament.

Let the madness begin…