Bubba’s Bigfoot Bracketology

March Madness is here, y’all, and the Palmetto State got shut out. No Clemson, no Carolina. No Coastal, no Winthrop. No College of Charleston. We’re 0-for-everybody, but that’s no reason why we can’t have fun. Hey don’t forget the WOMEN THOUGH. i WANT TO THROW IN a big SHOUTOUT to the Lady Gamecocks here. As for the guys, can you believe some people had VCU going to the Final Four last year, just for kicks? Or Butler making it, for the second time? And hey — it paid off.

That’s why we’re doing it up right with the Cromer Law Offices Blog Pool, over at Yahoo! Sports. Make sure to join group number 148370 and use the password, cromerblog.

With the Tourney Pick’Em, you can sign in with your Yahoo!, Google or Facebook account, and enter in up to two brackets. That way, you can have one bracket for jokes, and one that you spend all week putting together. The fun is when the “serious bracket” falls apart and you’re left with the “fun bracket,” praying Davidson plays the championship. Against UNC-Asheville.

The smart money, as always, is on the “chalk.” That’s the top-ranked teams in each region. Kentucky rode a down year for the SEC, and a stacked team in its own right, to the No. 1 overall seed. This, when losing to Vanderbilt in the conference tournament final. North Carolina knows something about that, losing to Florida State. The NCAA tourney selection committee didn’t seem to mind, putting UNC in as a No. 1 seed as well, with the teams possibly meeting in the championship.

Don’t believe the hype, though. Michael Wilbon said on Monday’s “Pardon the Interruption” that the selection committee is making a slow creep to being like its distant cousins in the BCS. The big conferences are getting a lot more allowances while mid-majors like Drexel get snubbed. Take a hard look at Belmont or Murray State. Or the non-traditional basketball schools, like Florida State. Duke can tell you something about the Seminoles’ ability to be clutch when it counts.

So enter in your brackets over at the Cromer Law Offices Blog Pool. The top winner through the Sweet 16 gets a “The Hills Have Thighs” DVD. The best through the Elite Eight will receive a copy of “The Long Way Home: A Bigfoot Story.” Win it all? You get both movies and a Bigfoot T-shirt.

Join in the madness, y’all, and let’s see who’s got the Sasquatch of brackets this year.

by J.L. Mann Cromer, Jr., who served as the only true independent member of the South Carolina General Assembly from 1990-1998. Currently, he is a general practice attorney in Columbia, S.C., concentrating in probate and estate planning, criminal defense and personal injury law.

With Wes Wolfe. He wrote for 11 newspapers in five states and is the marketing coordinator for ACEC Virginia.