[Brackets]

This is the one day of the year when newspaper publishers know that their issues will fly off the shelves and libraries will futilely guard the sports section. (At least that's how it used to be.) The field for the NCAA Tournament (PDF) was announced last night, and today's publications have those glorious brackets splashed across their pages.

Although more opportunities than ever to consume Division I men's college basketball have popped up in my post-college years, I've become less informed. There are only so many hours in the day, and I suppose my time doing stats for a D-III teams and keeping up with movies have had a lot to do with that. I still try to follow my team, which was regrettably but not unexpectedly left out of this year's tourney, but even that can be a challenge.

No matter how few games I've seen during the regular season, I still love examining the brackets, reading the capsule information about the teams, and making my picks. While most pools have migrated online, I continue to enjoy using a pen to fill out one set of brackets that I check during the games to see how my selections are faring. I also like having another sheet where I write in the advancing teams. It's a completely unnecessary act, yet I find something gratifying in writing the names of the teams that I don't get from a website doing this.

I've missed a good chunk of the last couple years' tournaments because the film festival has coincided with the first and second weekends. I'm excited to be able to gorge on these games once again, in part because I'm ready to hang around the apartment. (I noticed bags under my eyes last night, something I've rarely seen. That is as accurate of an indicator as anything that I overdid it at the festival.) For several years the cable company has made games from all four regions available, meaning I can watch whatever ones look most appealing. I can't wait.