In March, a Man’s Fancy Turns to Hoops

It’s America’s World Cup, a basketball tournament so important that it stops work. Yes, in America, it stops work, which isn’t easy, what with all there is to do these days.

“Miami of Ohio!” someone yells. “Who would’ve picked Miami of Ohio?”

And always, somebody has picked Miami of Ohio.

“I liked their back court,” he will explain, and everybody else will shake their heads and wonder how they could’ve missed picking Miami of Ohio.

Welcome to March Madness, where the NCAA playoff brackets sit like desk blotters at every office worker’s elbow, where every TV is tuned to a game. Where every 15 minutes, Cinderella knocks off another first date. No kiss. No foul.

“Arizona!” someone yells. “What happened to Arizona?”

Every March, guys who otherwise never speak huddle up around TV sets and watch the action, criticize the officiating, agonize over the upsets.

“Oklahoma,” someone mutters. “Who would’ve picked Oklahoma?”

And always, somebody has picked Oklahoma. Always, somebody picks the upset.

“I liked their back court,” he explains.

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No sports event lingers on as wonderfully as the NCAA tourney, two weeks of great games and last-second surprises, two weeks of athleticism, office pools and pure joy. The male Christmas. The perfect holiday.

“Oh, God,” someone groans.

“What happened?” a woman asks as we circle the TV.

“Oh, jeez,” one of the men explains.

“What?” the woman wonders, expecting a plane crash or an assassination.

“Wisconsin lost,” the man explains.

“I see,” the woman says.

“To Southwest Missouri,” the guy says.

“I see,” the woman says.

But she doesn’t really. For the most part, women don’t understand this March Madness. They’re genetically immune to it. Deep down, the way we behave each March scares them a little. Like some kind of menopause that only strikes men.

The women see us grouped around the office TV sets, glaring at the action with Halogen eyes, the kinds of eyes you see on cult leaders and ambulance drivers. Hard eyes. Steely eyes.

Sometimes, the men will be glaring at the tube and all of a sudden their brights will come on. That’s how good the game is. Their brights come on.

“He walked!”

“No way!”

“He took six steps.”

“So?”

At home, it’s not much better. Each morning, I hunch over the sports section, making sure I have all the scores correct for the office pool, rubbing the newsprint between thumb and forefinger, absorbing the tournament through my fingertips.

“So how much did you bet on this thing?” my wife asks.

“Five bucks,” I say.

“Five bucks!” the little red-haired girl yells, wondering how we’ll pay the mortgage when her dad is running around town betting five bucks on everything that bounces.

“Half the money goes to support cartoons,” I lie.

“Five bucks,” the little girl says again, almost near tears.

“I’ll give you seven to stop,” my wife says, like she even has seven bucks.

And that’s not all. In March, the boy’s room suddenly becomes a shrine to the tournament. He watches the game on his mini-TV, then imitates the winning shots with his little rubber basketball, jamming on a 6-foot rim attached to his closet door.

“Watch this, Dad,” he says, bouncing a shot off the ceiling, then the backboard, then through the net, a rare double-bank shot.

“Better not let your mom catch you banking the ball off the ceiling,” I warn him.

“I showed her,” he says, banking in another shot.

“You did?”

“She liked it,” he says. “But not in a good way.”

Which sort of sums up how women feel about March Madness. They like it. But not in a good way.

Here, in brief, is how the tournament works.

Each March, the NCAA picks 64 teams for its championship tournament. Among them will be two or three colleges nobody has ever heard of, possibly correspondence schools or beauty colleges, some with enrollments of no more than 12, all of whom play basketball.

Each year, one of these beauty colleges actually wins a game, screwing up everyone’s office poll predictions and creating havoc across the land.

“Gonzaga!” someone screams, as if just shot. “What’s a Gonzaga?!!”

This year, several beauty colleges and correspondence schools made it to the semifinals, making guys especially crazy.

“You mean somebody really picked Gonzaga?”

And that’s March Madness. To us, it all makes perfect sense.

Sweet 16. Elite 8. Final 4. At nights and weekends, the brackets with the teams we’ve picked come home from the office, looking like the Declaration of Independence, all crinkled and torn, yellowed with coffee or Coke, for two weeks, the most precious document in a guy’s life.

“Anybody see how Gonzaga did?” I’ll say when I finally get home from work.

“Who’s Gonzaga?” the little girl will ask.

“You really picked Gonzaga?” the boy will ask.

“I liked their back court,” I’ll say.

“In a good way?” he’ll ask.

“Yeah,” I’ll say. “In a good way.”

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hris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.