The obvious reason America loves bracketology is that it is a 3 week excursion into egomania. You basically pick teams to win, knowing full well that statistically you have a one in a godzillion* chance of winning.Then you spend the next three weeks talking about yourself. I was at work Thursday and heard the following in a span of about three minutes:
"If UConn loses my bracket is finished."
"I can't believe I picked Purdue, that was a good call."
"There's probably no way I can finish in the top three, now that Xavier is out."
"I went straight chalk this year and I'm doing pretty well."
"I always pick all four 5-12 match ups for upsets and that was a good call this year."
"I have Kansas, Mizzou and Oklahoma in the Final Four, because of my Big 12 loyalty."
"I didn't pick Kansas to even go to the Elite 8 this year, because they're a young team."
"Oh I did, Cole Aldrich is my guy!"
Etc. etc. etc. until they all ran out of things about themselves to say.
It was really amusing, actually, as they all simply waited for a tiny bit of dead air so they could jump in and see how many "I's" they could say before they too were interrupted.
Which reminds me of something Benjamin Franklin once said. He said it had dawned on him that people considered him an arrogant jerk, and the reason, he surmised, for their hostility was because he spent far too much time talking and far too little time listening. He resolved to ask each person two questions for each question they asked him.
Three years later he was the elected the first president of the University of Pennsylvania. He said he found that when he turned the questions back on others, they subconsciously felt pleased, and deferred to him from that point on as the leader in conversations. It served him well, as he went on to a respectable career in science, literature, politics, and business.
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