This post is about an American tradition: March Madness. I will refer to wikipedia to define this annual event. I quote “The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single elimination tournament held each spring featuring 65 college basketball teams in the United States. Colloquially known as March Madness (as the tournament takes place mainly during the month of March) or the Big Dance (as opposed to the now smaller and less prestigious NIT), the tournament takes place over 3 weeks at sites across the U.S., and the national semifinals (the Final Four) have become one of the nation's most prominent sports events.” So there be the basics, but why is this tournament considered “Madness”? In my opinion, the number one reason for the “madness” is that the tournament is single elimination. You lose, you go home. There are no round robins, no opportunities to play a bad game. Every year, in true David vs Goliath style, some underdog teams will play above their level and knock out some of the best teams in the country. There are always surprises, and they are always exciting. The madness is exacerbated by the fact that an incredible number of people are betting on this tournament. Actually, this gambling is generally accepted, or at the very least ignored. Here is how this works. Before the tournament, one predicts which teams will win each tournament game. One can then put money into a communal pool (often through work or amongst friends), and at the end of the tournament the person or persons with the best brackets wins the money. The consequence of this is that you start cheering for teams you have never heard of nor cared about. Last night, for instance, I was rooting for Winthrop to beat Notre Dame. I don’t even know where Winthrop is. Total madness. Well, yesterday and the day before were the first two days of the tourney, and 64 teams were reduced to 32 teams. In my pool, which is just for pride and mostly composed of my family (my Dad almost always wins), I am currently in first place. I expect that I won’t stay there for long. There's too much madness yet to pass.