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martydoesntfoul
02-27-2015, 12:17 AM
I've been racking my brain all day, trying to think of something -- anything -- that is worse than Bracketology. It's quite possibly the most terrible idea of a generation. Before the VPI game it was merely annoying. By halftime it was horrible. By the end of regulation, intolerable.

Sorry for the rant but in the face of such remarkable uselessness I could remain silent no longer. To put this into context, I was only able to come up with a handful of comparable examples:

-the pet rock
-tanning with baby oil and tin foil (what was that skin cancer inducing practice even called?)
-the NBA rule that let's you advance the ball past midcourt after a time out

Anyway, nothing would make me happier than to see post after post providing additional examples (although I must warn you, this might be harder than you at first think). We must be heard. We must do everything in our power to stop this madness :D

BigWayne
02-27-2015, 01:04 AM
Banning plastic grocery bags while allowing every other kind of plastic bag to continue to be used.

SCMatt33
02-27-2015, 08:43 AM
I'll bite. The only thing worse than bracketology is...gimmicky bracketology! Remember Jimmy Dykes' jet? Duke's gotta get on first class of that thing! I didn't even notice until reading this thread that it wasn't around this year and then saw that he got hired as Arkansas' women's coach. Good for him. I'm certainly not missing the jet.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
02-27-2015, 09:18 AM
I'd call it on par with the complete idiocy leading up to the football championship.... Months of "if the season ended today..." and "what if." Who would you pick from the SEC?? How do you leave out Team X? What if we have TEN one loss teams?

All it does is manufacture faux-controversy and outrage.

The season DOESN'T end in late September, much like trying to project number one seeds for the NCAA tourney in December is simply mental... um, exercise.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
02-27-2015, 09:25 AM
I'd call it on par with the complete idiocy leading up to the football championship.... Months of "if the season ended today..." and "what if." Who would you pick from the SEC?? How do you leave out Team X? What if we have TEN one loss teams?

All it does is manufacture faux-controversy and outrage.

The season DOESN'T end in late September, much like trying to project number one seeds for the NCAA tourney in December is simply mental... um, exercise.

Addendum: the only thing I find sillier than Bracketology is getting bent out of shape regarding where an "expert" has our team seeded three months before the tournament. I can't get worked up about it, and I think that seeing it as a sign of disrespect is tilting at windmills.

jacone21
02-27-2015, 09:44 AM
Lunardi's side part.

bedeviled
02-27-2015, 11:56 AM
Reading the NCAA Selection Committee is on a Fool's Errand thread reminded me of Lundardi's defense of the RPI to Sagarin. His response is summed up as
The RPI is neither "mine" nor "beloved" by me. I use it to varying degrees because the Selection Committee does. My job is to forecast what the committee will do on Selection Sunday, not make national policy on how teams should be rankedHowever, I enjoy the drama of the whole conversation [link (http://a.espncdn.com/ncb/s/bracket/banter/030227.html)]. Sagarin appears to not hold back any punches.

Then, the second part of the conversation surfaces [link (http://a.espncdn.com/ncb/s/bracket/banter/030306.html)], and some guy named Richard Fitch enlightens us to what pulling no punches really means with comments like "As you said, you've invested thousands of hours here. Far too many, apparently, to admit you have been wasting your time on a very silly formula."

By the end, Sagarin and Fitch have been separately challenged to a Bracket-off for money and reputation.

While searching for those correspondences, I came across the following which may interest someone:
- Short story about how Lundardi came to be the world's foremost bracketologist [link (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1571681-joe-lunardi-jerry-palm-and-the-birth-of-bracketology)]
- A consensus bracketology site [link (http://bracketmatrix.com/)]. Do 50 exercises in futility add up to something useful? A least the site has a record of how all the individual bracketologists have performed historically [link (http://bracketmatrix.com/rankings.html)]. Notably, I didn't spot any by Sagarin or Fitch!

OldPhiKap
02-27-2015, 12:45 PM
I've been racking my brain all day, trying to think of something -- anything -- that is worse than Bracketology.

UNC's Compliance Office?

Dr. Rosenrosen
02-27-2015, 01:46 PM
decaf coffee

weezie
02-27-2015, 01:58 PM
Zima beverage.

MCFinARL
02-27-2015, 02:12 PM
Matthew McConaughey Lincoln ads?

NYBri
02-27-2015, 02:13 PM
I've been racking my brain all day, trying to think of something -- anything -- that is worse than Bracketology. :D

Losing to UNCheaters or in the first round to anyone.

flyingdutchdevil
02-27-2015, 02:14 PM
April to November (except every four years for the greatest tournament in the world)