this approaching madness

I’m a big fan of the annual NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Not only does it provide great sport and great drama and rooting on my alma mater and all that, but as college ministers we’re seeing a really cool display of the great tribes we get to reach. I hope in some small way watching all those teams is a bit devotional for us who have been called to these amazing campuses.

But as for the fun stuff… If you’re like me, you fill out a bracket (or several) each year online. That always makes the tournament even more fun for me – partly because it gives me somebody to root for in games I usually wouldn’t care much about. But this year I’ve decided to be a bit more… aggressive. So I plan to have quite a few brackets out there – at least one or two should still be alive well into the tourney, right?

So, for your convenience, here are a few of the free brackets out there that look promising (and that I’ll be using). (Obviously, you’re on your own to check out the rules, terms of use, etc.)

• Facebook / CBS
• ESPN
• Yahoo!
• MySpace
• AOL
• Murphy Oil
• Buffalo Wild Wings (where I’ll probably be watching the tournament a few days)
• Sirius XM
• John McCain (really – apparently it’s his 3rd year doing it)