The NCAA Tournament reminds us of one of those complicated table games in Vegas. All we know is we lose money on it. We’re completely powerless in the endeavor. Which is why we only do one bracket per year.

(We’re a one rack bracket guy)

Our Final Four: KU, UNC, Stanford, Drake. Winner: Stanford. We also have our Georgia Bulldogs going out to X in the first round today *sniff*.

Although we will be attending the Final Four in San Antone (first move: ordering Tony Roma onion brick on the Riverwalk), by that time we’re normally wholly disinterested in the exercise. That is, unless there’s something weird going on with the teams or the game site. Maybe the roof will leak. Or there’ll be a sour cream spill in the concourse. Something, anything if we’re stuck with four Dukes on those two days.

Our biggest bright spot of the Final Four is that most of the *work* of the teevee talking heads is done. When we watch the aging, mostly-ESPNers break down the games (how bad does Bob Knight look and sound in the morning?), we have absolutely no interest in what they’re talking about. Because 95% of it is absolute poppycock. Forget substantial analysis of their performance, we’re more interested if they say something inappropriate or nonsensical. Or somebody is wearing something stupid.

One exception: Give us the borderline bi-polar, truth-teller Doug Gottlieb and that’s all we need. He rocks. But we wouldn’t want to be in a glass enclosure with him more than 20 minutes.

Our other usual great debate about the tournament is where to watch the games: Sports bar or home. With buddies or alone.

Unlike an event like the Super Bowl, where we have prior knowledge of the teams going into the game, we prefer to watch the Madness in a public place. Mainly to observe the reax of our fellow fans. We know, we’re weird.

When you’re in a sports bar, even if the sound is turned up for the games, you usually can’t tell what the hell is going on anyway. But since we couldn’t name a single player on the majority of teams in the tourney, despite what Adrian Branch on ESPNU tells us, who really cares?

We’d love to say that we’re emanently excited about the tournament starting, and we are, in an oblique kind of way. But following something we know so little about, it’s hard to feign unbridled enthusiasm. That is, unless you have some midday Cutty by your side.