Around the Bluhmin’ Town

By

Judy Bluhm

Bracketology. Now available as an online course, so we can learn (or suffer) the math equations, used in predicting the field and seeding for all 68 teams in the NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

March is upon us and Madness has begun. Yep, it’s that time of year when the NCAA tournaments send millions of fans into a synchronized frenzy. It’s thrilling to watch over 60 teams vying for basketball’s biggest prize. Oh, the glory of heart-pounding, last second, buzzer-beating baskets that result in the euphoria of winning, while the rest will scream in agony and must go home. There will be tears, sweat and greatness with a champion team at the end of all this chaos.

Which makes me wonder, what is the single greatest invention of all time? No, not the wheel. Not the combustible engine. It is the round sphere, better known as a ball, that has dominated the world. Imagine for one dismal moment that there were no balls. No baseball, basketball, football, soccer, golf, tennis or volleyball. The planet would stop spinning, global economies would collapse, and billions of people would end up depressed and despondent. No games to play, watch or bet on. No teams to cheer.

How did basketball begin? It originated in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts when a future minister named James Naismith was assigned to teach a physical education class at a Young Men’s Christian Association. The class had a reputation of being disorderly, and Naismith was told to invent a new game to keep the young men occupied. And since it was a very cold winter, the game had to be played indoors. Peach baskets were used as hoops and many of the rules Naismith drew up still apply today. The first professional league was formed in 1898.

Back to bracketology. The brackets allow us to over-analyze and obsess over every little stat. So, let’s sharpen our pencils and figure this out. Oh, did I mention that the odds of making a perfect bracket are over 9.2 quintillion-to-one? In fact, the odds are so miserable that if every man, woman and child in the world completed a bracket, the odds would be a billion to one against any of them being perfect! Why not just buy lottery tickets?

It seems betting on the NCAA basketball tournament is big business, since an estimated $2.72 billion will be spent on gambling during March Madness this year! And approximately $17 billion bucks are lost to businesses during the month of March due to a decline in employee productivity. In other words, Americans have gone mad about this tournament.

Let’s forget about brackets for a moment and move on to “rackets.” Did you know that there is an increase in vasectomy procedures done during March Madness? Urologists all over the country often advertise heavily in February, some giving discounts up to fifty percent off, with ads that scream, “Get A Vasectomy, Recuperate Watching the NCAA Tournaments.!” Hey, I’m calling this a “foul!”

Dear Readers, I hope you have a slam dunk of a month. No madness required.

Judy Bluhm is a writer and a local realtor. Contact Judy at [email protected]or visit www.aroundthebluhmintown.com.