March Madness Day 1: Queue the Music!

It's the most wonderful time of the year. This Thursday and Friday I truly believe are the two best days of the entire year. Games for 12 hours straight, the office buzzing with brackets being busted, Doug in marketing's 7-year-old kid's bracket is perfect through 8 games, some white guy from a farm in Idaho who had one scholarship is hitting 3's to send a team of multiple NBA draft picks home, it truly does not get better than this. And we're picking every game of the first round this year.

It all starts with the appetizer, two games each on Tuesday and Wednesday to wet the beak before full blown chaos. Two days to get mentally locked in, figure out the lucky spot on the couch, re-sync the internal clock for bathroom breaks and menial tasks during timeouts, and a refresher of which friend in the group text has a feed 10 seconds behind yours. And just because you don't pick these games in your office pool, does not mean these games don't matter. We get a lot of second weekend teams from the First Four, so we got pay attention early.

Howard (16) vs Wagner (16)

Howard -3.5, O/U 127.5

Both these teams got hot and won a conference tourney they had no business winning. It's splitting hairs here. Wagner's defense does not allow very many points, but they also do not score a lot either. After a week off, they'll likely lose the momentum gained during their conference tourney run. I'm "making sure I don't miss the homecoming at Howard."

Pick: Howard -3.5

Colorado State (10) vs Virginia (10)

CSU -1.5, O/U 120.5

This game is the game of "big mad". Virginia making the tournament has people big mad, as does the six-bid Mountain West. No matter what happens, Big East fans are guaranteed a "told you so" moment at the end. And guess what? I could care less, it's been 24 hours so the statute of limitations on complaining about being left out have ended. Go home. I could truly see this game going either way, but guard play, 3's, and FT's are king in March and Isaiah Stevens does all three well. The game will be won or lost by his play. He will score enough or turn it over enough for this to hit the over, but I think it's the former.

Pick: Over 120.5, also CSU -1.5