Is Anyone Else Ready For March Madness?

Ahhh...you're probably into Australian rules Football then, eh? They used to show that here on ESPN, but I haven't seen it in a long time. Maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough. There are several different ESPN channels now.

This is the NCAA college basketball tournament that takes place here every year. They start out with 68 teams, have two "play-in" games on Tuesday and then play basketball all day Thur-Sat until they reach the "Sweet 16".

The following week the next round winners are known as the "Elite Eight" and the regional winners reach what's called the "Final Four". They play the following Saturday with the two winning teams meeting the following Monday night for the championship.

It's great fun to fill out your own bracket and follow along round by round. Many people gamble heavily on their brackets and many companies, organizations, etc have what are known as "office pools".

Everyone will put in a set amount of cash in the pot and then you're awarded a certain number of points for each round as long as the teams you choose continue to advance. The person with the most points at the end wins the pot. They'll predict a final score of the championship game in order to use it as a tiebreaker, if needed.

You can find brackets online at ESPN, CBS and others if you'd like to play along. Of course, I'm just doing it for fun. I don't gamble. :-)