(Photo: NCAA.com)

On a day that former KROQ sports guy Matt “Money” Smith, thinks is better than the Superbowl, March Madness begins! It’s three weeks long, and the first two rounds are where most of the upsets come about. “You have the Cinderella moments, the last second shots, a 12 [seed winning] over a 5, a 15 challenges a 2…” said Money.

Had the half court shot been made at the end of last year’s Duke vs. Butler final, “it would have gone down, I think without question, as the greatest moment in the history of American sports… That’s what I think makes this so much better than a Superbowl, than an NBA final, than a Stanley Cup game 7 in 6 overtimes. You don’t have any idea who’s gonna come out ahead.”

This tournament is widely popular because of the competition of the brackets and the betting. It allows the fans to be hands-on, and to follow every game for a reason.

ESPN even showed President Obama filling out his bracket.

Bean heard that the number being thrown out was $2.5BILLION gets bet on the NCAA tournament! Money went on to say that it’s the best weekend in Vegas. That’s a lot of freakin’ money! Last year, one guy that bet on the tournament got it all correct and walked away with $1MILLION. The odds of that happening are so slight!

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Laker’s coach, Phil Jackson, said in an interview yesterday that the people who choose their brackets  by team mascots or team colors generally do better than the people who spend a lot of time doing research. From my own personal experience, I’ve seen the random girls in the office pick their teams based on who’s got the hottest players and win the bracket! Basketball’s practically the only sport I don’t follow, so I can’t really hate on that approach. I’d probably do the same thing.

Money says, “Go through a mental log, if you haven’t smoked too much weed, and think about who’s won the office pool the last five years.  Those who know the most, do the worst. The reason why those people win is because they go ‘well, there’s a 1 vs. an 8. I’ll take the 1…’ Teams that have 1′s next to them, it turns out they’re really good and they usually go to the final four and one of them usually wins the tournament.”

Here’s Money’s tips – If you don’t know much, so with the top seeded teams. “Go chalk the whole way.” This just means to go with the favorites. Kevin had a problem comprehending this term. “This year, there’s not really one team that’s that low [that could come out from being the underdog]. There’s 8′s, 9′s. There’s a 4, Louisville, and another 4, Texas. I could see Texas winning the whole thing. They, by far, have the most talent of anyone in the tournament right now.”

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