![\"Cinderella\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Cinderella.jpeg\")
<\/a>This week I found myself in a bar (What?!) trying to explain to a Brit, who was now working here in the U.S. and who apparently has been in a cave for the last 30 years, the excitement around all the college basketball on TV. I explained that this is the N.C.A.A. College Basketball National Championship Tournament; more succinctly referred to as \u2018March Madness\u2019 or \u2018The Big Dance\u2019. \u00a0He asked if this was the finals of Dancing With The Stars<\/i>. I patiently explained that it is a 64-team, single elimination college basketball tournament for the national championship.\u00a0 I wondered if I was going too fast for him.<\/p>\n<\/a>“The Wizard”<\/p><\/div>\n
\u00a0I proceeded to tell him that for the seeding of this tournament, he’d have to throw out where he thinks regions are in the United States.\u00a0 There are four 16-team brackets, South, East, West and Midwest (I said I think the North is still playing hockey), but this year Milwaukee, a Midwest team, is seeded in the East, Louisiana-Lafayette, a southern team, in the West, Manhattan College, in New York, is in the Midwest and UCLA, is seeded in the South.\u00a0 UCLA however, has no one to blame but themselves for this.\u00a0 The tournament used to be seeded by region, so there would always be a team from each region in the Final Four.\u00a0 Until from 1964 to 1975 \u2018The Wizard of Westwood\u2019, John Wooden\u2019s UCLA teams won 10 of 12 championships and the other coaches in the west argued that they never got to go to the Final Four because they were always eliminated by UCLA in the regionals.\u00a0 While geography still plays a small role, it\u2019s more about seeding teams according to ability. \u00a0My new European friend only perked up when I said the word ‘Wizard’.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Win $1,000,000,000<\/p><\/div>\n
I asked him if there was a lot of buzz at work about the \u2018office pool\u2019 and then disappointed him by telling him that there is not a new aquatic center being built at the home office, that the pool is merely the 64-bracket seeding sheet that allows folks who think they know basketball to prove that they don\u2019t. \u00a0I told him Vegas gets more bets during this tournament than at any other time of the year, including the Super Bowl. \u00a0Super Bowl, he asked? \u00a0Never mind. \u00a0There are all kinds of ways to bet this tournament and this year, for the first time, billionaire Warren Buffett has offered $1,000,000,000 (yes, that\u2019s with a B) to the person who picks every winner of every game \u2013 that\u2019s picking all 62 winners without a mistake.\u00a0 Actually there are 4 \u2018play-in\u2019 games making it 66 winners.\u00a0\u00a0 The odds?\u00a0 One in 9 with 18 zeros behind it! (Update: after two days and only 25 games everyone who entered for a chance at the billion was eliminated)<\/p>\n
I told him that he\u2019ll hear some alliterative terms being bantered about this week, \u2018Final Four\u2019, Elite Eight\u2019 and bet him that he’ll never hear the word ‘sixteen’ without the word ‘sweet’ in front of it. \u00a0At the risk of confusing him even more I mentioned that he’ll also hear the term ‘Cinderella’ quite a bit over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
I continued by telling him that the term has nothing to do with wicked stepmothers, glass slippers or getting home before your horses turn into mice. \u00a0Rather, it\u2019s a term for the \u2018long shots\u2019 in the tournament. It is usually a small college, seeded 10th<\/sup> or below in their bracket, with a charismatic coach, who, after his team loses in the ‘Sweet Sixteen’, will dump that school and accept a pumpkin chariot full of money to go to a non-Cinderella school.\u00a0 It usually doesn\u2019t work out and he ends up scrubbing gym floors for a wicked Athletic Director in Podunk Hollow, Mississippi.\u00a0 There have however, been \u2018Cinderella exceptions\u2019 in recent years; Wichita State, Butler and George Mason all made it to the Final Four. \u00a0Coach Brad Stevens, who took Butler to two <\/i>Final Fours, skipped going to a non-Cinderella school and signed a contract to coach the Boston Celtics, where his team has a .329 winning percentage this season. \u00a0I think he left his pair of glass slippers back at Butler. \u00a0Who are this year\u2019s Cinderella teams?\u00a0 Stephen F. Austin, Oregon, Harvard (yes, that<\/em> Harvard), Virginia Commonwealth, Nebraska and Mercer.\u00a0 If none of these teams are still in the tournament as you\u2019re reading this, you\u2019ll understand why Buffet\u2019s money was so safe!<\/p>\n Cinderella schools can also have unusual mascots. \u00a0This year we have the Manhattan College Jaspers (a long story), the St. Louis University Billikens (an even longer story) and the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Upon hearing this last name, my new acquaintance lit up and told me that Chanticleer is the rooster in Chaucer\u2019s Canterbury Tales (which is exactly where Coastal Carolina got the name!).\u00a0He was now interested in \u2018The Big Dance\u2019 and has a \u2018Cinderella\u2019 team for which to root. \u00a0He thanked me as he left and I thought I saw him doing the \u2018Chicken Dance\u2019 on the way out the door. \u00a0Brits!<\/p>\n (Update: Coastal Carolina lost it’s first game and is out of the tournament)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bob Sparrow This week I found myself in a bar (What?!) trying to explain to a Brit, who was now working here in the U.S. and who apparently has been in a cave for the last 30 years, the … read more<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n