Conversation repeated in millions of workplaces across America:
“What the…?”
“I know!”
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship may not be over until April 3, but the office betting pool is already over.
Thanks to a series of upsets over the weekend, following a trend of unexpected underdog victories, everyone’s brackets were in shambles. As of Monday, only two people had a single team in the Final Four, and each person had picked that team to lose.
The good news in all this was that we could divvy out the money early.
The bad news, from my perspective at least, is that I didn’t get it.
This didn’t surprise me, however. When chipping in my contribution to the pool, I had completely written off my portion, mentally designating it as having gone to “entertainment purposes.”
I told people I put my money in fully expecting to lose it.
Of course, people said in return, that’s why it’s called gambling and not winning.
I laughed and decided not to get too involved in the process… Then somehow I ended up in third place after a week.
This threw me off. I have long said I have paid more attention to women’s basketball than men’s games. This is primarily for two reasons. One, is the men’s team at the University of Missouri hasn’t been decent since 2002. The fact the team didn’t even earn an NIT bid this year is only the latest illustrative example in a long-declining trend.
Two, being a four-year player in the pep band for the MU women’s team, my spring breaks were tied to the team’s successes or losses. Trying out for the men’s team was never an option to me. For many years, the pep squad for the men’s team, Mini Mizzou, was the premiere show band at the university. They had the highest profile gigs and did the most traveling in the post-season. For that they accepted only the top musicians, so the group was primarily dominated by music majors. This didn’t bother me because I thought such dedicated people deserved something for all those extra hours spent practicing. That and for many years band members in Mini Mizzou were expected to wear frilly tuxedo shirts, which I have never taken a liking to.
Being only a casual musician, and being much sharper on the kazoo than trumpet, my best shot at a gig was the pep band for the women’s team. I came to prefer these games. Though the crowds were smaller, the fans were certainly more invested in the team. I was amongst scrappier musicians like myself, who relied less on practicing and more on playing by ear. And best of all, since we weren’t as high profile, less people were watching us so we could get away with more stunts.
For reasons I will not get into here, the Smurfs theme will always bring back warm basketball memories.
It was with the women’s team that I would travel to Arizona for the NCAA tournament during spring break the first year the men’s team started to tank (and it had been running and fumes for a while). When the women’s team scored another NCAA berth this past season and the men’s team got diddly, I wasn’t surprised.
It was for all that – plus loses by Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma (stupid Big 10, Big XII loyalty) – that I was surprised to find myself in any decent running in the office pool. I realized I had probably peaked, but I still found myself more invested in the outcomes.
Of course, as the upsets mounted, and I saw my chances dwindling, I was comforted by the fact that almost everyone else was just as hard off.
“Gambling is a vice – especially when I’m losing!”
“Of course! When you’re winning, it’s a profitable hobby.”
After Duke lost to LSU, which put a dent in nearly everyone’s bracket, some of us handled it somewhat crazily.
“I saw we write a sternly-worded letter to Duke telling them how disappointed we are in them.”
After Connecticut, which the majority of workers had picked at the conference champions, lost to George Mason, some of us handled that more poorly.
“Okay I say we bypass the strongly-worded letter to Duke and all get on the letter bomb to George Mason.”
This all being said, the pot was won by the person who picked all his matches by statistics. Of course, when you remember that he still had 75 percent of his Final Four picks wrong and 100 percent of his picks for the final two, you realize he won the money by employing mathematics to be slightly less wrong than those who went by gut picks.
I’ll leave the final words to our office champion: “This proves that math sucks.”
