1) Safety First, Last and Always
There first thing you need to do is make sure you have a safe environment while watching the Sweet 16. I can't stress this enough. Many of my tournament viewings have been ruined by snowstorms, floods, Zombie attacks, Canadian invasions, Canadian Zombie Invasions, and the ever present danger of Bob Knight on rabies (Hey am I the only to notice how subdued Knight is on ESPN? I swear he barely has the energy to raise his head. He's like one of those tigers in Vegas. You just know someone is going to miss his daily injection and then Knight will eat Diggers Phelps on air) Anyway so I recommend a safe house, bomb shelter, or a small island nation to watch the game at to avoid interruptions.2) Pick a Team to Root For
What you say you can only root for the school you went to or were conceived at? Well to that I reply: To quote Dante "Suck on my Italian balls "(although my Medieval Tuscan is a bit rusty so I might be a little off on that). In any event there's too many games, with too few chances of you being directly connected to your team not pick a team to root for. So pick a team from the same state your from, family members attended, visited, had a 3 way with underage Thai women (Publius I'm looking at you). I suppose you could pick the Peter King method (pick the school with the best white guy) but that seems, well, racist. That said individual players can be used to select teams . Hey maybe you love Brook Lopez's hair (is he the brother with floppy curls? Gets me every time) or Tyler Hansborough's hustle or Kareem Rush's brother because you remember Kareem's motivational speech "Banging Midgets: An Issue of Equity".3) Pick a Team To Hate
As important as it is to pick teams you like you need to also find teams to hate. Again there's just too many games just to root for "competitive games" or something lame like that. Methods for selecting team's to hate include if the university's name is Duke... that is all. Need more rules? Fine. Teams that have screwed over your brackets in the past (FUCKING KANSAS) are fair game. Finally its ok to hate teams for no apparent reason like how I hate Georgetown (ok not random John Thompson II punched Dean Smith's dog for no good reason for which I'll never forgive him).4) Root For and Against Your Brackets Simultaneously
Much like fantasy football tournament time brings a divided heart. Do you only root for your bracket? Well that seems fairly soulless especially if it involved having a UConn player blow out his knee to get you that upset. Plus you already picked out the teams you like and dislike and you'd have wasted all that effort. So the key here is to root for and against your bracket simultaneously. Impossible you say? Yes. Crazy you say? Yes. Impossible you say? No. It just requires short term memory loss. There's 9 million reasons to cheer when anything any team does affects you somehow and its absolutely unconnected to any other thought/emotions you just had.5) Denial is Not Just a River in Egypt
Sometimes through no fault of your own (well probably no fault of your own) you don't get the result you want. Maybe that team you had winning the championship gets knocked out. Or maybe that team you rooted for/against/neutral won/lost/tied. A pretty crushing blow. The important thing though its only a few days away from getting revenge. Yes only a few hours of waiting and that team that you didn't want to do well will have a chance to absolutely implode. So redouble your efforts, never admit failure, and hold your ground no matter what the evidence says otherwise. Err for the Elite 8 (why is there something else that speech reminds you of?)
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