This was my year. My annual NCAA tournament pool has become more an annual dive for me the past few times out. My Homer-like instincts constantly find Duke and Kentucky losing and Arizona in the Final Four.
And, every year, Duke and Kentucky dominate and I cry over spilled milk, or more like a wasted 20 bucks.
But, for some reason, 2004 was the year I was going to win the pool. But, as my favorite ESPN personality Chris Berman likes to say, "That's why they play the games."
My two nemeses, Kentucky and Duke, both entered the tournament as No. 1 seeds. However, I still managed to find flaws. Kentucky has no superstar and Duke is fragile, with most of its points coming from J.J. Redick, a streaky sophomore, and Luol Deng, an unproven freshman.
So, in usual fashion, the Blue Devils and Wildcats are out early. But the problem is that the two teams I had beating them, Arizona and Providence, couldn't even make it out of the first round.
Let's not harp on who I didn't pick, but rather look at the teams I chose to back entering the real granddaddy of them all.
My upset specials of the first round were Illinois-Chicago over Kansas, Southern Illinois over Alabama, Western Michigan over Vanderbilt and Louisville over Xavier. And the only person upset by those picks was me.
But I still have my Final Four, right? I picked everyone's clich? pick, Pitt, to go along with UConn and a healthy Emeka Okafor. Those were the easy picks.
I had a vast array of choices for the other two. Instead of thinking with my head and putting Kentucky or Duke in, I went with my heart and put my two favorite teams in the tournament, those slipper-wearing Gonzaga Bulldogs and North Carolina.
I mean, Roy Williams' journey to Carolina was meant to produce victories in March. Yeah, one victory. Until Texas came calling.
Gonzaga kills me. My heart jumps with every Blake Stepp three-pointer and every Ronny Turiaf finger point. I love Mark Few and may moved to Spokane, grow my hair out and start eating wheatgrass and listening to Bob Dylan if the Zags won the tourney.
I picked them to go to the championship game, but lose to UConn. On Thursday night, I was psyched. A drubbing of Valparaiso had me singing the theme song and a Nevada victory over Michigan State removed any worry I had of a second-round upset. My attention turned to Boston College beating Georgia Tech so my Zags would have an easier Sweet 16 game.
March 20 will forever be known as Black Saturday in Spokane, Wash. Playing in front of a home crowd in Seattle, the Zags lost ... LOST! The worst part is they lost to a team that had no business in the tournament, much less breaking my heart... and my bracket.
With North Carolina and Gonzaga gone, I was forced to suffer through the nervousness of watching two of my Elite Eight teams, St. Joseph's and Syracuse, barely survive against Texas Tech and Maryland. I faced the prospect of losing five of my final eight in the first weekend.
So, on Saturday night, I studied my bracket for hours wondering if there was still a way to win my pool. Then it hit me - my stupidity is a microcosm of the stupidity that goes on in sports.
Unfortunately, this blind support has transformed the greatest time of the sports calendar into a nightmare for me. Instead of enjoying the heart-stopping ending to the UNC-Texas thriller, I sat there with my head buried in my hands because I was so nervous.
And, moving to the second weekend of tourney play, I still have half my Final Four teams alive. Go Panthers and Huskies.
I will get over my missed opportunity to eat wheatgrass and hike in Spokane, or go dancing on Tobacco Road. But at the rate this tournament is going, there stillmay be dancing on Tobacco Road, but it will be my team's archrival, Duke, donning the party shoes.
