The Sweet 16 is set with games getting underway tonight, but the four March 24 matchups (Duke-Arizona, UConn-San Diego St., Butler-Wisconsin, BYU-Florida) offer me little reason to stray from my regular three-hour session of watching NBC’s Thursday night comedy six-pack.

I’ve never taken to the fad of March Madness.  And despite being the biggest sports nerd I know, I still feel more obligated to keep up on my regular sitcom schedule. When 8 p.m. finally rolls around, I wager that I’ll be tuned into Community instead of watching CBS sports announcer Gus Johnson exuberantly call out the names of Wisconsin and Butler players that I (nor  Mr. Johnson) have never heard of (and will likely never hear of again).

I’ve watched every episode of the six shows since September while even the most loyal college basketball fans fail to keep up on the 300-plus Division-1 schools through the meaningless three-month regular season.

With that, college basketball just doesn’t provide enough intrigue to get emotionally involved and commit to the three-week NCAA tournament.

I find that the major draw to watching such major sports’ postseasons, like the college bowl season or the NFL playoffs, stems from the impactful four-month marathons that lead up to their respective postseasons.

When making these football predictions, I can initially assess each team based on their up-and-down trends, make revisions based on new information and recent fortunes because I witnessing them through the regular season.

Filling out a bracket is too much of a crap shoot. It attracts nothing but novice sports followers, compulsive gamblers and awkward co-workers who struggle with water-cooler conversations.

Like most people, including CBS fill-in basketball analysts Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, each school’s respective regional semifinal opponent is all I really know about the remaining teams. Just as those “experts” did, I filled my bracket blindly, choosing winners based on their seed while scattering in a few upsets to mask my ignorance on the topic. (I have seven of the remaining 16.)
On a similar note; I never go to see movies in the theater, thus my Academy Award predictions usually bring the same results.

I’ll just watch SportsCenter like everybody else will tonight, so I can act like I know what I’m talking about. That should provide at least two Dixie Cups worth of uneducated conversation.