Czabe's Official 2012 Bracket

Once upon a time, I watched metric tons of college basketball in it's longform presentation. Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the winter. All of the pre-season tournaments during the holidays. Big Mondays, Monster Thursdays, all that shit on ESPN.

I am not sure when exactly, that flow of college buckets started to dwindle to a mere trickle as it did this past year.

The quality of play, is sagging. Yes. Too many one and dones to the NBA. The poisonous AAU culture that delivers these pre-made "stars" to college coaches is not good for the game. There are too many games on TV. Nobody asked for this awful 4-team appendage to March Madness.

Yeah, yeah, all of that.

But it's really just me. I am not sure why this former Division I play-by-play man for UC Santa Barbara - who once LIVED AND DIED the sport with every game - has turned rather blase about regular season college buckets.

I still love the Tournament. Wished I knew more players. Wished I had a more educated take on what teams do and do not do well.

But it requires putting in the time. I haven't put in the time. Not sure where my time went, or what exactly I was watching instead. But there it is. The truth.

So, with that disclaimer, I heartily submit my completely unfounded bracket, for no other reason than my hunches are likely only 18% less likely to be correct than somebody who has watched FIVE metric tons of college basketball both in person and on television.

If anybody really knew how a single-elimination, neutral site, 64-team goat-rope of a tournament was going to turn out with horny, confused 19 and 20 year old kids, you would have to bet it would be somebody like Jay Bilas or Doug Gottleib.

These guys may not be your faves on ESPN, but to my ears, they know what the hell is going on across the country. Not only do they see games live, they talk to coaches and players, they really don't do anything BUT college basketball, and - worth noting - they both played D1 ball at good schools.

And yet, Bilas and Gottleib can't sell their bracket on the internet for $59.99 because it's a nearly 80% sure-fire winner-winner-chicken-dinner in your local office pool.

It's likely to be just as DUH, chalk-laden as Bill In Accounting's bracket. Or as wildly wrong and over-thought with upsets as Digger Phelps when he gets too deep into his hotel mini-bar.

So here's my bracket.

I like Kentucky.

Eventually, greasy Cal is gonna win one of these, and it sure as damn hell helps he's got the best player in the country.

That's some high level analysis there, folks.

I'll try to watch more games next season.

PS: For those of you who can't read microfiche with your naked eyes, Brad Turner has chopped his GargantuBracket into two pieces, so you can print them vertical on 8.5x11. If you or your office intern/monkey is tricky, he can print the halves "back-to-back" on a single sheet, and you then will be the cock-of-the-tourney-walk!

GARBRACKET - LEFT HALF (SOUTH & WEST)
GARBRACKET - RIGHT HALF (EAST & MIDWEST)