March Madness

Okay, so this post is not really about business school, but it does have to do with American universities so maybe you'll cut me some slack. It is officially spring in the U.S. with the beginning of the NCAA college basketball tournament last Thursday. My office does an annual pool, which I happen to have won last year. This year I'm in the lead, but one of my colleagues informed me this morning after serious statistical analysis that it remains anyone's game, given the heavy weighting of later matches.

Unfortunately absent from this year's tournament is Stanford. They failed to win even half of their conference games during the 08/09 season. For a team that has played in the tournament 13 out of 14 seasons from 1994 to 2008 and made it to the Sweet 16 as recently as last year, that is a pathetic record. I don't know much about their conference (Pac 10) or their current roster. I do know that former Duke player and assistant coach Johnny Dawkins joined Stanford's basketball team as their head coach this season, so I'm willing to cut the team some slack and give them one season to adjust to new leadership. But I hope they pull it together next year and are a good team to root for!