Hey, somebody has to win.

Before we start today, you deserve a little explanation, a reason for the way things are done in some places.  Mostly here, and exclusively on an NCAA bracket selection sheet.  I am a fan, and root with abandon for a team.  It is a passionate rite that endures bad seasons, and rough stretches.  It is like a friendship, a relationship, a marriage or a family.  Sure, sometimes things are not perfect, and occasionally a rocky stretch will cut deep.  But, we stand together, me and the teams.  I can not pick another team to beat my team on the sheet, it would be infidelity, it would be unfaithful, it would be wrong, and then when the game took place I would have to choose between hoping my team lost, or I lost.  So, I picked Nebraska to win the NCAA tournament.

From an unnamed source and used without permission.

While filling out my brackets I took the words of Coach Miles to heart when he said "I think we're a good enough team to win the tournament."  Coach Miles does not seem to be guilty of overt, macho bravado, or rampant, wild conceit, it is a quiet confidence, at least outwardly, that drives his words.  So, I picked Nebraska to win the NCAA tournament.  

After so many years of accepting an early end to the season, and looking forward to spring football coverage, this is exciting, and the joy of possibility is a powerful force.  Things are getting better, and it is happening now.  So, I am picking the Huskers to win the NCAA tournament.

In the hauntingly appropriate words of the great Bob Dylan.

"It’s undeniable what they’d have you to think
It’s indescribable, it can drive you to drink,
They said it was the land of milk and honey
Now they say it’s the land of money
Who ever thought they could ever make that stick
It’s unbelievable you can get this rich this quick"

One of my earliest memories is, and I was just a child, when my Mother, rest her soul, took me aside at a family reunion, and said to me, "Tim, if something carries a statistical probability, no matter how slight, that does not diminish over time it will eventually happen."  Those may not have been her exact words, but it was something like that.  And, after this season, it is safe to say that the statistical probability of Nebraska winning the tournament not only did not diminish it sky rocketed.  So, while Coach Miles, and I may have the time variable a little off, we are probably pretty accurate, if not this year, one year very soon.  So, I picked Nebraska to win next years NCAA tournament.  Yes, next year, the riches just keep piling up.

And, since I feel so good about this, here is a bonus appropriate Dylan quote for the day.


"It’s unbelievable like a lead balloon
It’s so impossible to even learn the tune
Kill that beast and feed that swine
Scale that wall and smoke that vine
Feed that horse and saddle up the drum
It’s unbelievable, the day would finally come"

So, has our day finally come?  Yes, to me it has.  By the way, I like the Cornhuskers in this years big dance, who are you picking?