March Madness: Adopting a Team for the Tourney Run

One of the first things I did Monday morning, besides curse at , was print off an NCCA Men’s Basketball Bracket.

March Madness is one of my favorite times of the year. I don’t watch much college basketball during the regular season, but come tourney time, I’m plopped in front of a TV watching as many games as possible. I always fill out a bracket and have routinely beaten my family in our annual bragging rights game.

On Monday, as I watched the snow fall, I made my first set of picks. Later I’ll probably go for round two and then send them off to my sister for official record. After that, it’s countdown time to the first real games—and the play-in games don’t count.

I thought it would be a fun thing to do for the site if we adopt a team and follow it along throughout the tourney. I considered Missouri and Illinois, the two most local teams, but I just couldn’t do it. I’m just not a Tiger fan—sorry just about everyone else at St. Louis Patch—and Illinois doesn’t do anything for me.

I couldn’t find local players on big teams (if you know of any, please let me know at joe.barker(at)patch.com), so I was just going to give up trying to localize this story. That is, until I found Saint Peter’s.

While looking over my bracket, I did a double take at the No. 14 seeded team in the Southwest Region. Hailing from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, the Peacocks clinched an automatic bid the tournament.

With the Peacocks, I’ve found my—our—team.

Here are some facts about Saint Peter’s: The college is a liberal arts school in New Jersey with approximately 3,000 students. The school is the only Div. I school in the NCAA to have a Peacock as its mascot and the school colors are blue and white.

The Peacocks are 20-13 this season and are led in scoring by Wesley Jenkins12.8 points per game. Saint Peter's has four players averaging at least 10 points per contest. 

Here’s what this really means. For the next however-many-games Saint Peter's is alive, I’m a Peacock fan. I’ll be pulling for them to be the Cinderella team of 2011. They take on Purdue in the first round and I hope Saint Peter’s can come away with a win.

If you want to hope aboard the Peacock bandwagon, you can come join me on Friday at . Saint Peter’s and Purde will be playing at 6:20 p.m. on TNT and I’ll be watching. Come by and say hi and you get a free pen or some other Patch stuff. I’ll be the guy in the green Patch shirt.

It should be fun. Go Saint Peter’s Peacocks.