March Madness: Everybody plays!

Basketball is a distant fourth on my list of favorite sports, behind football which is itself a distant third behind baseball and hockey. And NBA basketball might as well not even exist as far as I'm concerned. But I don't think it's reasonably possible to argue that there is a better championship in sports than the NCAA men's basketball tournament. 65 teams enter the tournament and the championship game between the final two teams is almost always a dramatic match-up that comes down to the last few seconds to be decided.
I am, of course, in an office pool. Everybody gets involved with office pools now. Last year, I had a chance of winning the office pool and pocketing over $1000, if only Ohio State had beaten Florida and someone who loves, loves me...I'm talking the big L word here, a serious, sincere, deeply-felt personal bond...and generally doesn't care about sports at all actually rooted against me. That's how much mass appeal the tournament has.
Of course, it should be pointed out that last year's championship game was the rare exception that was not exciting at all. Naturally.
One nice thing about the tournament is that you get to learn all kinds of fun facts about the participating schools. For instance, I learned this past weekend that Western Kentucky University's nickname is the Hilltoppers because that's where the school is located, on top of a hill. Applying that logic to the University of South Florida, they could very well be known as the Next To The Malls. Of course, applying logic to a university in west central Florida that calls itself South Florida...well, there's that.