jennings rampage

I’m as orange as Bruce Pearl right now.

The most frustrating period of time in the seasonal cycle of the sports fan is the 89 hours and change between the end of the Selection Sunday show and the tipoff of the first session of the first round in the NCAA tournament.

I’m trying something new this year — to prevent the endless fiddling and remorse that comes with my naturally superior bracket analysis (I’m right almost half the time!), I’m coming in at the wire this year. I’ll sit down at 11am tomorrow morning and enter my pool, and then I’ll just walk away. Call it an early lunch. Hell, maybe go home for the day, I have Good Friday off, let’s get a head start on the best weekend for a sports fan.

Now, I haven’t denied myself the pleasure of watching the talking heads make their predictions (all that chalk!), and I’ve probably glanced at a full bracket and I probably know a couple upsets and who I have going all the way, but I haven’t committed to anything yet. This has been very freeing for me this week; I know I haven’t made a single mistake. (And I will not have made a single mistake until I click on Kansas six times.)

But here’s something I did not know: apparently, I was totally spoiled living in Chapel Hill. The CBS affiliate in Raleigh broadcasts four HD feeds of the entire tournament for free on digital cable, and silly me, I thought that’s what everyone did. DENIED. Here in the alleged Greatest City In The World, we get one HD feed and an On Demand channel with highlights. That makes me more homesick than Weaver Street and Lexington Barbecue rolled into one.