True Madness

2:49 pm ET
This is the time of year I usually am getting my baseball glove broken in and starting to throw to keep my arm lose for the season, but this year, it's a little different. March of 2014 is my year to be the Joe Lunardi. I am going to make the perfect bracket and win one billion dollars. Well, I hope so at least. When the bracket came out earlier this week, I was ecstatic. I knew I wasn't going to get  a perfect bracket, but at least get some upsets right. I love the brackets. All of em. From NCAA to NIT to CBI to CIT. They just get me really excited, especially when my schools Villanova and Duke are high seeds.

March is the best time of the year in the sports calendar without a doubt. I am sitting in my math class right now watching Duke. How great is that: we are watching basketball in the middle of class. That's what the tournament brings to everyone in the country. Everyone has a school to root for and will do anything to watch 'em play. There is just that magic that is known as college basketball.

The games that start at lunch time, the games that go till midnight, the games where a no-names like Florida Gulf Coast takes down a historical national powerhouse in Georgetown. Watching the coaches sweat it out through 3 overitmes, it's just special. I connect with the players of teams I have never watched before. I root harder and harder against the wretched North Carolina Tar Heels...

Ok so now all of the lovey-dovey stuff is over I can stop crying tears of joy and talk about my bracket. In Dallas, I think the four teams that will fight it out will be Florida, Arizona, Michigan State, and Duke. In the National Championship game, Duke will score 77 points to Michigan State's 73. Now that's just my opinion, but the national consensus is the Florida Gators. Don't think I forgot about Wichita State, but I just don't think they are that good. The Ohio Valley Conference is nothing compared to the ACC.

7:10 pm ET
While I was writing this article, I was in school during Academic Recovery (study hall) and was really high on my Blue Devils' chances of becoming national champions. That feeling has since turned to sadness due to the loss. If you know me at all, you would know my passion that surrounds Duke basketball. Both my uncle and mom are alumnus of the school so it's in my blood. My bracket is officially busted (if it wasn't already with Dayton, Harvard, and North Dakota State's wins) but that's not was frustrates me the most. My heart has sunk 20,000 leagues under the sea.

Why write about you almost crying after a loss to a 14 seed?
Because it shows the magic of the tournament.
Magic? But magic is good and your upset...?
The tournament games are different, obviously they mean more than Duke's 30+ point victory over Central Michigan, you are always on the edge of your seat for every play. While I am still a kid, last year when Duke was playing in Philadelphia for the 2nd and 3rd rounds, I was at every game. I sat two rows from courtside seeing the college I want to go to win against Albany and Creighton (a team that would kill my Villanova Wildcats in two games the following year). Wide-eyed and amazed at Seth Curry speeding down the court, Mason Plumlee throw two hand jams into the meek Albany players. Even see Doug McDermott put up amazing numbers beyond the ark was just... magical.

Duke is out. I don't like it at all, and my billion dollars are staying in Warren Buffett's pocket, but there is a lot of tournament left. A lot of magic left. (plus my Wildcats play tomorrow against UConn)