brackets

So Close

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Every year, I dutifully fill in my brackets for the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament held around this time every year. Usually, I fill in quite a few — some serious, some off-the-wall, some in-between. Usually by this point, all my brackets are toast, and I’m hoping for some Cinderella team to pull off the improbable win.

This year, there were no Cinderella teams. No double-digit seeds that got to the Final Four. No underdogs tugging at everyone’s heartstrings. It was the usual top seeds that made it to the end. That made it a little less exciting for the games, but a little more helpful for the brackets.

One bracket was shaping up nicely. I had correctly picked all 8 of the Elite Eight teams, all 4 of the Final Four teams, and was one down, one to go for the Championship round. If it had all gone to plan, this would have been my best bracket ever.

Unfortunately, it did not go to plan. One of the teams I picked to advance, Duke, was actually leading up until the final few minutes. The other team, Houston, made an improbable comeback and won the game, dashing my bracket once and for all.

That’s life. At least a lot of life is like that. You almost get that one thing you really want, but not quite. You get the marriage or the house or the car, and it’s every bit of what you dreamed it would be — almost. It’s like we have desires that nothing in this world can quite satisfy.

C. S. Lewis said that if we have those desires that can’t be gratified by anything in this world, it means we were made for another world. Anything this side of heaven is only a type and a shadow of the real thing in heaven. Our ultimate longing and desire can only be found in God.

Of course, some of the things I really thought I wanted or needed to have I didn’t get because God knew better. Some of the kindest words God ever says to me are Him telling me no to a request that if I got what I asked for would destroy me. At least it would not be good for me. Also, I can’t really ask God to give me anything outside of Himself that’s as good as God, because that thing or person doesn’t exist. I think C. S. Lewis said that, too.

Anyway, I’m already looking forward to filling out multiple brackets in 2026 and hoping for that one miracle bracket. My golden ticket, if you will. I suppose I can dream, can’t I?

To All Those Bracket Busters

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I love this time of year when the season known as March Madness descends on all those who love college basketball (or just good competitive sports in general).

It’s the time when people fill out brackets of who they think will win each and every one of the 67 games all the way up to the national championship game. Mostly, it’s just for fun and mostly it’s akin to throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded.

This time around, I filled in 11 brackets, hoping that maybe one might actually win me something– if nothing more than a good sense of pride in finally having a decently picked bracket.

This is also the time of year when at least one team will come out of nowhere to pull off the monumental upset that will wreck just about everybody’s brackets.

Last year, it was Middle Tennessee shocking Michigan State and rendering a lot of brackets as birdcage liner or recycle bin filler.

Four years ago, Florida Gulf Coast knocked off Georgetown and managed to break into the Sweet Sixteen before being unceremoniously ousted by Florida.

A lot of us know what it’s like to be the underdog. Many feel like outsiders and outcasts in a world where image and style are everything.

Yet in God’s economy, those are the ones He picks to advance His kingdom on this planet. Those very underdogs are the ones He calls more than conquerors through Christ.

So far, every one of those NCAA Cinderella teams eventually get kicked out of the ball and end up going home short of being champions. Just about every time, it’s one of the power programs who ends up winning it all.

With God, it’s a different story. It’s the last who are first and those outcasts who end up with the victory. It’s the nobodies who are the ones God calls His beloved.

So far, my brackets are still in the running, for the most part. I still have an outside shot of ending up with a respectable outcome. If I win any money or fame, I promise to remain the same humble blog post writer as always.

 

Busted Brackets

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I did my civic duty tonight. No, I didn’t vote. I filled out my NCAA basketball tournament brackets (nine in all).

Some of them I played straight. I picked all the #1 seeds to win. On some others, I just went plain crazy. I picked just about every game to be an upset.

It hit me as I was filling in these brackets. As you know, no 16 seed has ever beaten a 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Ever.

There have been a few #15 seeds upset the #2 seeds and a few more #14 seeds pull a shocker over their 3 seed counterpart, but no 16 seed has ever beaten a 1 seed since the tournament expanded to 64 teams back in the 80’s.

What hit me was this: what God did for me in saving me was the equivalent of a #16 seed winning the whole enchilada. Or if you will, the 64th best team (think Austin Peay) winning the national championship.

I’m definitely not saying that God’s the underdog in this story. I am. On my own, I had absolutely no shot of making it out of the first round. I was the equivalent of a team of corpses.

But God made me alive in Christ. He raised me up with supernatural power. in Jesus, I have become more than a conqueror. My salvation story is akin to that Austin Peay team reaching the finals and beating those mighty Kansas Jayhawks in the national championship game.

A pipe dream? Maybe. But I know that in God what seems impossible to me and you is possible for God. In fact, it’s not even remotely difficult for God (thanks again to Pete Wilson for that one).

I have a feeling that most of my brackets will be busted and broken by the Sweet Sixteen. I know that spiritually speaking, my life in God will never ever be busted and broken because I serve a God who knows the way out of hell and the grave.

The end.

 

My Bracket’s Got a Hole In it (But It’s Not Busted Yet)

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So far, so good. Not great, but good.

The last time I checked, I picked 72.6% of the winners correctly on the best bracket out of the ten I filled out for ESPN. The worst? Lagging behind at 1.4%. I couldn’t have done much worse if I had picked blind-folded or settled the games by flipping a coin (which I actually did for one of my brackets).

At this point, my chances of taking home the top prize for best bracket are the same as my Tennessee Titans winning the Super Bowl next year. Not good. But I still had fun and hopefully learned how to pick better in the future. And I found out yet again why I don’t need to pursue professional betting as a career.

But you will lose on 100% of the brackets that you never fill out. The guy whose bracket had 16 seed Hampton winning it all did better than the guy who had all the right teams picked in his head but never committed to pen and paper (or mouse and keyboard).

In life, you will miss out on 100% of the chances you didn’t take. I’ve found out the hard way more than once.

If I could go back, I’d probably make a few changes. But I’m satisfied with my brackets (none of which have officially busted as of this moment, 10:40 pm CST on March 27, 2015). I also believe that it’s never too late to start taking those proverbial leaps of faith and risks. Just because you were timid and afraid in the past doesn’t mean that you have to be that way in the future.

Just out of curiosity, what’s the best upset pick you’ve ever gotten right? I seem to remember once picking a 15 seed to knock off a 2 seed back in the day, but I can’t remember who it was and I have no proof that it happened. I recall it might have been Coppin State over South Carolina, but then again, I may have dreamed that episode.

 

My Bracket’s Got a Hole In It

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Busted-Bracket

I recently checked my NCAA basketball tournament brackets– you know, the ones that were supposed to make me rich beyond my wildest dreams and completely irresistible to women?Yeah, that one– and was more than pleasantly surprised at one of them.

As it turns out, my Fox Sports bracket was doing better than 99.6% of all the brackets out there. If I believed in jinxes, which I do not, I would have thought that I jinxed myself. That was as good as it got for my bracket.

After that, my brackets went in a direction decidedly warm and southward in a handbasket. Three of my Final Four teams lost, including the team I had pegged to win it all. The team a LOT of people had marked to win it all– Michigan State. They lost. So did my runner-up, Michigan.

So, I won’t be rollin’ in a Rolls Royce or Maserati anytime soon. But I had fun filling out my brackets. And at least I got this far before my brackets busted. Unlike most of my efforts in the past.

For those of you who don’t follow sports, it means that the world didn’t end. I didn’t have any money to bet on these games, so I didn’t lose any. Not that I would EVER have bet money on sports, says the good Baptist boy.

Nothing will happen to me other than maybe me being knocked down a rung or two on the ol’ ladder of my sports pride.

I’ll be back next year, filling out as many brackets as humanly possible and basing all my picks on gut instinct and my sportly intuition. Which loosely translated looks a lot like eeny-meeny-miney-moe. . . .

I have no illusions about having a perfect bracket. I just hope my championship pick doesn’t lose in the first round.

 

Hindsight Really is 20/20

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I do this every single year. I look at my NCAA tournament bracket as it is in the process of imploding and wonder how I could have made some of the picks I did. I mean, Montana? Really?

At this point, I’m rooting for all the underdogs and scrapping any dreams of winning big cash with my brackets. If I’m going down, I want all the other brackets busted, too. I have no basketball pride.

It’s so easy to look back at the choices I’ve made in other areas of my life and wonder what I was thinking. I know you look back and cringe at some of the monumentally dumb decisions you’ve made.

But look at it this way. I may regret some of my choices, but not where they’ve led me, because I know God is better than anyone at bringing good out of a bad situation. Just ask Joseph (either one). Or David. Or practically anyone from the Bible.

Honestly, the only way not to fail spectacularly is not to play. And that is the worst failure of all. Failing is inevitable, but failure doesn’t have to be. You can learn from your mistakes. More importantly, you can see what God does with those mistakes, bringing you into places you might not ever have gone and to people you might not have otherwise met.

You will know better than anyone else what to say to someone because you’ve been in that same place. You can say, “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.”

I love what a pastor said. I’ve said it before, but it can’t be said enough. What you thought was your worst moment, your worst decision ever, what you swore you’d never tell anybody ever, God turns into the very first line of your testimony. Because your mistake no longer defines you. God does. The way he redeemed your failings does.

As for my bracket, I’ll fill one out again next year, hopefully a little wiser about who to pick and who NOT to pick. Or maybe I’ll just flip a coin and go with that.