Madness Baby Madness!!

After yesterday's more introspective and solemn post, I thought I would blog about something a little more light hearted. Perhaps, something crazy and wild.....no those are the wrong adjectives. Perhaps something......MAD.....yes that's more like it. It is March Madness my friends, the best three weeks in sports for the entire year. Sure the NFL playoffs come close, but nothing matches the intensity, madness, and heartbreak of the NCAA tournament. Do you know that so many people get invested in the tournament that businesses project that they lose $3.8 billion in lost productivity. That's just crazy...I declare a holiday! At least for the opening two days (which were yesterday and Thursday). I was fortunate as I did not have to work and actually got to watch every one of the games.

This year was truly a case of Madness. The opening games on Thursday were boring as could be. Beside for a Duke nailbiter. which could have been the upset of the decade, no Cinderella teams emerged other than the 11th-seeded Kansas State Wildcats with arguably the best player in the country beating the 6th seeded (and perhaps too highly ranked) USC Trojans. At the end of Thursday, the prognosticators were looking at their brackets with a huge smile. Where were the upsets? Where the stories from '08 that we would tell to our grandchildren one day? Nothing happened. And then came Friday!

Yesterday 10th seeded Davidson upset 7th seeded Gonzaga (which I will argue is a larger upset than KSU over USC) to start things off and then things crumbled. First it was your always expected 12-5 upset with two 12 seeds winning. 12th seeded Western Kentucky upset 5th seeded Drake with a 3-point basket at the buzzer in overtime. That is what madness is about. Then 12th seeded Villanova proved that they and the Big East belonged in the tournament with an upset over 5th seeded Clemson. But that was not the true bracket-busters. No....a 12-5 upset while crazy can sometimes be expected....no it's the following that makes this a mad world. Two 4 seeds went down yesterday. 13th seeded Sienna upset 4th seeded Vanderbilt. And in the heartbrake of heartbrakes, my second favorite team (next to The Orange of course), the 4th seeded UConn Huskies were upset in overtime by one-measly point by 13th seeded San Diego. Oh it is soooo painful!

But that is why you have to love March Madness. Today's set of games are actually very good if not a bit predictable due to the lack of upsets on Thursday. But tomorrow, you will have two games where a 13 seed will face a 12 seed. Who would have thought!!! As for me, I only got 20 out of the 32 teams right and lost 3 of my Sweet 16 teams. I'm hoping the upsets were the same for everyone, but my chances this year....not so much.

Anyhow.....have a wonderful day, enjoy the games and I will blog with you later.

-Nice Guy SMA-

P.S. As for a training update: I had an amazing workout week. Ran in total about 15 miles this week with a full 10K yesterday that included my best mile interval ever. I also got back to the gym Tuesday-Thursday and had some great workout. Plus I am now back on the legal-supplement of Muscle Milk! So things are going well. Now I just need to get the job things moving forward!