Dear Kid,

Well, it’s March Madness.

SUNY Albany lost to Florida to the accompaniment of much yelling at the TV.This surprised pretty much no one as Albany was ranked dead last and Florida was ranked considerably higher (#1 is considerably higher than #last).

Almost all the Ohio teams lost as well. This surprised many people and broke many brackets. (It is considered unlucky to have your bracket broken as it means you will not win $1 billion. But don’t feel bad–the odds of creating a perfect bracket are one in nine quintillion* which are pretty big odds. Then throw in that these are college players and you’re better off betting on finding two identical snowflakes.)

Meanwhile, people who did not bet on March Madness will make all sorts of overdone bracket jokes on Facebook { }.

March Madness continues until April 5. Which means our television will take a lot more abuse over the next few weeks. (I wonder if I need to report TV abuse…)

The first NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament was in 1939 and had only eight teams. Now there are some number just short of a quintillion.

Sportswriters are having fun writing about a potential Cinderella Story, wherein a low ranked team might win. It is lovely that they are (correctly) assuming that predicting the winner is a fairy tale, but ever so wrong in the particulars. Basketball players almost always keep both shoes on their feet, the shoes have no heel to speak of, and while the shorts they wear these days are voluminous they will never be confused with a ballgown. Sportswriters clearly are not focused on fashion.

That pretty much exhausts my knowledge about basketball in general and March Madness in particular. Maybe I can find a guest blogger to write something useful as we get farther into the tournament. Or not.

Tanner is graduating today. Be sure to send Auntie M a congratulatory text.

Love, Mom