MARCH MADNESS

Gosh...I'm really sorry it's been so long. I figure there's no time to get back into the blog, though, like March Madness time - and I think I'll welcome you back with an annual tradition...my obsessiveness over the NCAA Tournament bracket.

If you've read before, you know I'm a little....different....when it comes to my bracket. And this year, I'm realizing there are some common feelings that come over me at the same time every year. Here's a rundown:

1) Unbridled Enthusiasm: There are few times during the sports year I get as excited as I do between Monday and Wednesday of Tournament Week, when I start filling out my bracket. Wednesday night (like tonight), my heart starts beating a little faster. It's like a kid on Christmas Eve. I put the final touches on my brackets (well, not really - I don't change any picks once I write them down - more like I make sure I've entered them into whatever websites they need to be entered on), like putting out the cookies for Santa. I feel tired, but know that I won't really sleep well - there will be at least one dream of forgetting to submit a bracket. And I'll just want sleep to come so that morning will come faster. Then I have to get through the workday...

2) Hope: Every Thursday around noon comes the realization that my bracket could very well be perfect. It's the last moment that my picks are perfect. I like to savor that feeling for a bit.

3) False Hope: If I escape Thursday and Friday with any semblance of a "good" start, I raise my hopes. Any first round where I post less than 10 losses qualifies as a "good" start for me...depending on repeat losers.

4) Dejection: Inevitably, by Saturday night, I've lost an important game. It tears me apart.

5) Regret: I go back through my picks, wishing I could have a new blank bracket to fill out, and that I had gone with different instincts when I originally made my picks.

6) Second Wind: After Sunday I'll reassess the situation, and figure that if my bracket is busted, so must everyone else's be. And I'll figure out a new method to win the pool.

7) Repeat until the field gets too small, and I give up all hope. And then turn my attention to baseball.

EVERYONE'S IN THE POOL: OK, not quite in the pool, but I'm proud to say my 2-year-old filled out her first bracket tonight. She likes Pittsburgh to win it all. She also likes Cleveland State....which is why I didn't put it in the pool. But she's starting her picks at age 2. That's better than winning any pool in my book. I already can't wait until next year when I can add to her record.

APPROPRIATE CONSEQUENCES

It's not often I will sing the praises of the Florida Gators (the Southern Bureau and I had a negative experience with a Florida Gator die-hard, back in college). Besides their team colors, I'm just not a fan. It's also not often that I will sing the praises of a college coach - most of the big-name guys are disingenuous and don't really practice what they preach.

But I'm loving basketball coach Billy Donovan's reaction to his team's disappointing season.

A year ago, the Florida Gators won the national championship. This year, they didn't play very well, and they're making their way through the NIT. After the NCAA Tournament field was announced, and Florida wasn't included, Donovan told his team that they were not allowed to work out in the school's $11 million practice facility. He also banned them from wearing their Florida gear around campus.

I love it. Talk about an embarrassment. What player wouldn't want to rally around this and earn back those rights? Immediately, it made me think of the Mets last September, and whether or not Willie Randolph could have gotten away with similar consequences imposed on the Mets.

The situations are similar. The Mets weren't coming off a championship year, but they had won the division crown. And there was a similar complacency, waiting for the re-coronation, when everything fell apart. Unfortunately, there is no NIT in Major League Baseball.
But imagine if, instead of working out at Shea Stadium all off-season, David Wright had been relegated to Gold's Gym (not that he deserves the mention, since he was one of the few guys who showed up down the stretch....but I mention him because I've heard his name as one who spent much of the off-season working out at Shea). How about if all promotional/endorsement appearances, where the players could have earned an extra few bucks, were canceled as punishment?

That's where the problem lies. The difference between the college athletes and a coach's ability to discipline, and the majors, where the players' union would step in right away, is drastic. And you realize just how tough it has to be to manage these groups of men who, in the grand scheme of things, don't have to face very many consequences for not doing the right thing. Someone will still pay them millions, someone will still offer them an endorsement deal.

As a fan, you just have to hope their pride hurts, because that's what will get them going again. They're certainly not going to suffer in their wallets.

THE TOURNEY SO FAR (AKA DAMN HUSKIES)

You know how I know I picked a bad bracket? I was glad UConn lost this afternoon. I would have felt guilty had they beaten San Diego. UConn was so uninspired - like they were supposed to get to the second round automatically. Like they were entitled. San Diego showed up and played hard. Good for them. And good for the fact that San Diego or Western Kentucky are going to the Sweet 16 - they both deserve to be there. UConn doesn't deserve to sniff it.

Their performance today reminded me why I never pick them, and why it felt so wrong for me to have them going to the Final Four. They did the same thing the year George Mason made its run. They just play stupid, and almost lazy. They make bad decisions. I'm embarrassed for having to cross them out so many times on my sheet. It should never have been there in the first place. I can only hope now that someone like San Diego makes a deep run in the tourney, a la Mason a couple of years ago. That's the only thing that will save my bracket.

I also realized that the only reason I ended up with UConn in the Final Four was spite. I don't think I went into this in depth, but I don't buy all of this UCLA Love (no pun intended...although I did make the effort to capitalize the "L", so maybe it was intended). Sure, they're good. But they've only barely gotten by opponents leading into the tournament (and 70-29 opening round wins don't count - that's like beating up on a high school team). So my remaining hope is that my instincts were true - even if they led me in the wrong direction with UConn - and Texas A&M or Western Kentucky, or San Diego, or even an upper seed like Xavier makes it out of that bracket, and saves mine.

OTHER TOURNAMENT NOTABLES:
-Would you believe I was actually sick on the opening day of the tournament? I went home early Wednesday after I was feeling kind of sick, puked a few times Wednesday night, and couldn't make it in on Thursday. No wink, wink here. Honest to goodness. So the good news was I saw most of the opening round (there was a good amount of sleeping - I was really sick). The bad news is I'm still sore from throwing up.

-Tennessee is a fraud. Always. This is one of those times where I wish you could weight certain picks. Because I would trade all of my UConn losses for the Butler over Tennessee pick in the next round. I would bet my bracket on a Butler win.

-I love when there is no 5pm game (the one that they don't show on TV). I think this usually happens on the Friday of the tournament. It's especially good when two of the games go into overtime, as the Drake and UConn games did on Friday, pushing the off-air time into the 6 o'clock hour, which meant less than an hour until the games started up again. I love it.

-I'm also liking the new Holiday Inn Express ad campaign, where they play up their breakfast bar as though it were a singles bar. They're funny.

-The Drake-Western Kentucky game was classic NCAA Tournament. Team comes back from way down to take lead. Team that blew lead hangs on for dear life and gets overtime. Favored team rights ship in overtime, and is in position to win with 5.7 seconds left. Underdog gets three-pointer at buzzer to win. Celebrate your 5-12 upset. (I had it.)

-The other good thing about the Friday night games - there's always another option (not that I'm actively looking for one). But when Boston University has a good hockey season, they are involved in a Hockey East semifinal on the Friday of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. So I'll also have that to watch in between some of the games - BU versus Vermont, 8pm.

We'll be back to baseball after this weekend...but as I've said before, I kind of get a one-track mind during this weekend.

NOT SURE WHAT JUST HAPPENED

I don't like UConn. Not one bit. But somehow, they ended up in my Final Four. I'm not sure how I arrived there, but I have my NCAA picks, and I employed a strategy of sorts, but I don't know how I feel about this bracket. It's that uncertain period, less than 24 hours from tip-off of the first games, where I'm tempted to start all over....but I need to stick with my first instincts.

Here's a quick overview of my strategy - for the games where my gut instinct was "unsure", I consulted some numbers. cbssports.com has a cool link where you can check out head-to-head stats for any two teams in the country, so I compared turnovers, field goal pct., free throw pct., points per game, and even some schedules to find the teams that I thought would win. (Oddly, I still went against some of my instincts, when I picked the team with more turnovers, or with a worse free throw percentage - I can't explain it.) Also interesting, if my bracket turns out well, there will be some really evenly-matched teams matching up in the later rounds.

So here I'll quickly break down my regions, because it's my blog and I can, and because none of you are really in the same pool as me, so I don't care if you steal my picks:

EAST: North Carolina is the only team I'm sure of here. I think they're the best team in the country, and I have them going all the way. I waffled on the 8-9, I picked Arkansas, but the more I look at it, the more I think Indiana will win. Notre Dame has two rounds in them, but loses to UNC. I like St. Joe's as an 11, Louisville, Butler, and Butler to beat Tennessee. UNC over Louisville (after beating fellow Big Easter Notre Dame) to get to the Final Four.

MIDWEST: Kansas over Kent St. Clemson will beat Vanderbilt, but lose to Kansas. USC outscores Michael Beasley, then loses to Wisconsin. Georgetown over 10 seed Davidson, then over Wisconsin. And Kansas outlasts Georgetown to get to the Final Four.

SOUTH: Memphis is OK for two rounds, but I don't buy them, like I don't buy Tennessee. They don't win games they're supposed to win. Michigan State is a good tournament team, usually I pick against them, but I have them beating Temple, then Pittsburgh. Marquette goes two rounds as a 6 seed, upsetting Stanford. St. Mary's will beat Miami, then lose to Texas. Texas beats everyone in this region - Marquette, then Memphis, to get to the Final Four.

WEST: What did I do here? I'm not sure. I don't like UCLA - they only won the Pac-10 because of a couple of squeakers and missed calls. So I have them getting upset by BYU (?!?! - I don't know why I pick games like this. But I like the way BYU matches up - please, let them beat Texas A & M, at least). Western Kentucky is my 12 over a 5, and then I think UConn barely gets by them. Baylor is the second 11 seed I have, but I have them then losing to Xavier. And West Virginia advances a round, then loses to Duke. Here's where I have some problems - I like Xavier to beat Duke, and I can'thave BYU going to the Elite Eight (can I?), so it's UConn versus Xavier, with UConn, in my opinion, more likely to go to the Final Four. But every year, one of my brackets is a disaster. Hello, disastrous East.

It's North Carolina over Kansas, Texas over UConn, and North Carolina over Texas for the championship.

What's your Final Four? Put it in the comments.

MARCH MADNESS

I go a little overboard when it comes to the NCAA Tournament.

Let me start, though, by saying that it's one of my favorite sporting events of the year. In the years before I became a teacher, I used to take off from work both the Thursday and the Friday of the first round of the tournament, and sit in front of the TV for 12 hours straight.

Now, I can't do that anymore, but I take the free time I have on that Thursday and Friday and look for the scores - and last year a friend introduced me to the cbs.sportsline.com link that allows you to watch the four games at once. We spent our lunch duty watching the games. (What's worse is now parent conferences are scheduled for the Friday of the first round - so not only do I not get to head straight home after our 12:30 dismissal, but I have to stay until about 5:30 to meet with parents. I guess I have to grow up sometime....and I just found out that this year, the calendar is different - so I might be off the hook, if nothing gets scheduled in on Friday.)

But my obsession with watching the tournament isn't even where I go overboard. It's not gambling either. While I enter a pool each year (and am intrigued each year by different people's scoring systems in the traditional bracket pools, or different pools involving the tournament that don't even revolve around brackets), it's not about the gambling for me. Last year if Georgetown had won it all I would have won some money, but I wasn't heartbroken when they lost to Ohio St.

Nope, for me, it's not about any of that. For me, the NCAA Tournament is all about my personal statistics.

I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but since 1993, I have kept track of my picks in each round of each tournament. So for me, each time March rolls around, it's a chance for me to improve upon my personal best. And last year, I did.

I have no strategy. I just pick the games based on what I know about the regular season, and I like to think I've done so in a more intelligent fashion as the years have gone by (the numbers don't bear that out). Here are some of the numbers:

*Best 1st round performance: 26-6 in 2000
*Best 2nd round performance: 12-4 last year
*I've never done better than 5-3 (6 times) heading into the Elite Eight
*I've never picked all four Final Four teams (I've gotten 3 of 4 three times)
*In 2004 I went 0-for-4 on the Final Four
*My worst year ever was 2006, with a 28-35 record
*My best was 45-18 in 2007
*I've picked the champion just four times in 15 years
*I average 37 wins a year, and there are interesting cycles - when I went to college, I saw a significant dip in total wins, it increased again until I graduated and had to work, and then it increased again until I got married.
*Speaking of marriage, I've also kept track of The Wife's brackets since 2001. She averages 37.5 wins. (The other day I asked The Baby, North Carolina or Duke. She didn't respond. Too young for a bracket.)

If our brackets went head-to-head, I am 3-2-1 against The Wife all-time. But it's not about how I fare against her....it's how I do against myself. And every year at this time, there's always a chance my bracket will end up 63-0.

Postscript: I am using a system this year for games I'm not sure about. I'll update you tomorrow.

BEST WEEK OF THE YEAR

I've decided to postpone my baseball season picks until Sunday. It's not that I haven't finished them...they're done, just waiting to be put out there. It's just that there's something else that's occupying my mind this week.
As far as anticipation goes, nothing beats the first week of the NCAA Tournament. I love it. Tomorrow I'll get into just how much I love it. This week also comes with a warning/pleading: Please don't lose respect for me. You already know I'm a little bit crazy.

The first thing you need to understand is that I'm a creature of habit. And one of my habits is filling out the NCAA bracket in the New York Daily News. So every year at this time, the race is on to find a Daily News near here (in Framingham, Massachusetts) to fill out my bracket. Tonight, on my way home from work (en route to the best corned beef and cabbage in the world courtesy of The Wife - Happy St. Patrick's Day, incidentally), I stopped at a supermarket with lots of different newspapers (no dice), a CVS in Sudbury (no dice), and the CVS right here in Framingham. There, buried beneath about five New York Posts, was Monday's Daily News. Fantastic.

I have one more mission before Thursday (and in recent years this has carried over into Friday and sometimes Saturday) - I need to get my hands on a Sports Illustrated for this week. Ever since I cancelled my subscription, this has been a problem. Used to be I'd get this SI in the mail on Tuesday, well in advance of Thursday's noon tip-off. Now, I have to hunt down the tournament edition. Why, you ask? So I can keep track of the tournament winners and losers, and then I fold the SI pullout section around my picks. (In addition to the original bracket from the Daily News, I usually make myself a shrunken copy of my picks to carry around in my pocket.)

I will join a pool or two - but it's always the same bracket, just in case you were wondering. I'd drive myself nuts if I tried to keep track of more than one.

Now, believe it or not, I don't have a system for picking games. I just pick based on gut instinct. And as you'll see tomorrow, that hasn't brought me a lot of success in the past. So this year, I'm going to develop a system. As soon as I finish this, it's off to the papers to try to figure out a formula for success. And on Wednesday, I'll let you know what we're rooting for, and why.

Tomorrow, you'll lose any remaining respect you have for me.

WHY I PLAY FANTASY SPORTS: As you know, I play fantasy NASCAR (this is my 2nd year), and now fantasy golf (in my first year). I'm not doing very well in either right now, but the reason I'm playing has been accomplished. The NASCAR reason was twofold - to learn more about the sport, and to while away the Sundays between football and baseball. Both have been accomplished.

For golf, it was something I thought I'd be good at (not yet), but it has also allowed me to follow the sport closer than I ever have. And as a result, I witnessed one of the most outstanding sporting events I've ever seen on Sunday. Not unbelievable or the greatest ever, mind you, but just an outstanding performance.

I've been following tournaments closely through the weekend these days - from Thursday all the way through to Sunday. Usually I'm lucky enough to have a rooting interest. Well, this week my rooting interest was to root against Tiger Woods - it was a calculated gamble that I won't get into right now. (And obviously, it didn't pay off.) Woods trailed by nine shots after Thursday (I think), cut into that on Friday, and was a co-leader after Saturday. He took the lead, and was tied on the final hole on Sunday. A par would force a playoff, and a birdie would win the tournament - keeping him undefeated for the season. You just look at Tiger, on a course where people haven't hit their putts all weekend, and you knew he was going to sink it. And it was a tough putt. And sure enough, he sinks it. There is no other athlete in any other sport right now who is that clutch. No one. It was a signature moment. And last year I wouldn't even have noticed it.

HERE WE ARE AGAIN

This is a weird time of year for me. I can't really put the way I feel into words. It's the doldrums of the sports year, and it's a real downer. However, there's also the "kid at Christmas" feeling of spring training being right around the corner.

There are certain things that get me from one week to the next at this time of year. My interest in pro basketball is non-existent, and my interest in the NHL is waning. But there is college hockey, and with Boston University being consistent, that keeps me going. It helps that the first two Mondays in February are the Beanpot tournament - that helps two weeks go by. Then there's college basketball, and the NCAA tournament, but that borders on more of a sick obsession than an enjoyment for me lately, and I end up by the end of that tournament feeling like I just completed a couple of weeks of work rather than watched a sporting event that I enjoyed.

This is on my mind because suddenly there are just 4 days until pitchers and catchers report for the Mets, and that really snuck up on me. Of course, things are busier this year at the House sponsored by DirecTV than they have ever been (thanks to The Baby), and my focus has been more on next week, when I have a week off to be with her, rather than baseball season. That either makes me a bad fan or a good dad...I'm not sure.

And I guess I decided to write this as a preview to the baseball season preview I'll be writing soon. February vacation is really when I start to step up the writing, so that will be happening in a week or so. I'm also writing because I can't believe the whole off-season has gone by and I only posted a couple of off-season updates.

I have a bunch of notes that I keep to remind myself of what I want to write, so that I don't sit in front of the computer and suddenly forget. Well, the danger of that is I write the note instead of the actual posting, and I end up never writing the posting. I was ambitious enough to write right away when Barry Zito signed with San Francisco, but you will probably not read my opinion of why Derek Jeter got screwed when he was not voted the 2006 American League Most Valuable Player. Luckily, most of my notes are still relevant, and there will be postings on:

So come on back, and check the site for updates. Remember you can always e-mail at johnnymetsmail@yahoo.com, and we can post those as well. I'll be back next week as we kick off what will hopefully be a championship season...until then, I'll be rooting for a snow day and waiting for vacation.

The annual frustration that is Sunday night after the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. I'm having one of my worst years ever. (Did anyone except me, notice, by the way, that during the Bradley-Pittsburgh game, the CBS score on the bottom right of the screen read: "Brad Pitt"?)

MATSUI: Kaz Matsui's spring training push for the second base job took a big hit since the last time I wrote - he sprained his knee during a game last Thursday, and will be out three weeks - and will definitely not play Opening Day. The biggest problem this presents is that the Mets can't shop Matsui - because the ultimate solution to their $8 million problem at second base is that the Mets will trade him.

It also means the Mets' Opening Day lineup will look something like this (as I continue to work on the newest feature on johnnymets.blogspot.com - good pictures):
Anderson Hernandez is the favorite to now start at second base Opening Day, leaving the right field spot as the only one still up in the air (although Xavier Nady looks to have the advantage right now over Victor Diaz).

WBC: The WBC Championship is Monday night, with Cuba playing Japan. The good news about that is that the Mets have all their key players from the WBC back in camp, with two weeks to go until the regular season begins.

I hear some people saying it's shocking that the first WBC doesn't have the Americans in the final four. I can't say I'm shocked - the way they were playing, the set-up of the thing, with the U.S. really not even having time to play together (and coming off a winter where a lot of them didn't touch a baseball), and the quality of the other teams indicated to me pretty early on that the U.S. was going to have a tough road. I love the fact that Roger Clemens gets the loss in the deciding game, too, against Mexico.

How many Cubans do you think will try to defect after the game on Monday night? I think the over/under has to be set at 1.5. Even with Castro's son posing as a team doctor to prevent such things.

SNY: Perhaps I'm wise not to hitch my star to the SNY wagon (or it's a good thing I was too lazy to ever give them a call). The station debuted on Thursday night, and there have been lots of errors - from blackouts to dropped ads. I'm sure things will get ironed out - but we're talking about a New York City television station - not something on the third floor of Boston University's College of Communication. Let's get it together guys.

SPEAKING OF WHICH....: Congratulations to the Boston University men's hockey team, champions of Hockey East, after a 2-1 overtime win over Boston College Saturday night. This is a fun team to watch - hopefully the Mets aren't the only champs I'm watching this year...the NCAA Hockey Tournament gets underway Friday - I'll keep you posted on BU.

ON A LEITER NOTE: Al Leiter announced his retirement on Sunday. He was one of my favorite Mets to watch - ever. He'll also have one of the most successful broadcasting careers by a former player ever. More than the third-man-in-the-booth-for-big-games role he's been filling on FOX the past few years. I wonder if he'll do national broadcasts on an ESPN or FOX station, or do local team stuff.

'86 METS ROUNDUP: Some distressing news - Dwight Gooden was arrested again on drug charges. Very sad. I doubt we'll be seeing him at the big August reunion. Also, a couple of interesting notes about 1986 World Series rings, both involving Hurricane Katrina. Barry Lyons, backup catcher on that team, lost his ring when his home was destroyed in the hurricane. Keith Hernandez told a story that he was having some work done on the ring, to give part of it to his new wife, and it was sent to a jeweler in New Orleans around the time of the hurricane. The jeweler was evacuating, and walked out of his shop, and Hernandez said the man went back in because he remembered the ring was in a safe - and got the ring. Hernandez said the man was a Cardinals fan, and liked him, otherwise he may not have the ring.

Coming this week: My predictions for the 2006 season...standings-wise, anyway.