Well, the NCAA Tournament is over, and your annual foray into gambling with your officemates has ended — in abject failure, as usual. You’re feeling a bit wistful about it. In fact, you acknowledge, you don’t really care all that much about the money element of the office pool — it’s the social interaction, and the trash talking, and the possibility of getting bragging rights, that’s the real attraction. It’s been fun following your brackets and talking to your friends about how you’re doing, and you’ll miss that.
So how about scratching that itch by getting together with your friends and combining the concepts of office NCAA pool, fantasy sports league, and everyone’s favorite big-budget quasi-medieval/sword-and-sorcery/dungeons-and-dragons HBO show? Except, unlike the NCAA pool where you’re trying to pick winners of basketball games, in this pool you’re trying to select the characters who are most likely to get killed and earn your team valuable points.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the Game of Thrones Death Pool.
It’s straightforward. Identify fellow rabid fans of the show, figure out how many of your pals will be in the pool, and set a time for your draft. Come up with a list of characters (there’s a lot of them, by the way). Figure out what you’re going to kick into the kitty and how you’re going to allocate the money — whether it’s after each episode, or at the end of the season, or both. Decide how many rounds the draft will go. Prepare a grid that people can use to keep track of who’s drafted whom, and appoint a commissioner — being a Game of Thrones pool, perhaps Archmaester or High Septon is a better title — who will keep track of the scoring, provide a brief recap, and let players draft from the list of remaining (and new) characters to replenish their roster and replace the characters who’ve been killed.
And then get together with your friends, have your draft, and enjoy an adult beverage or three while you’re deciding whether Brienne of Tarth is more likely to get knocked off early in the season than, say, Varys or The Mountain. There’s some strategy and skill involved, because even if you’re reasonably sure that a character is going to get rubbed out at some point — like, for example, Cersei — if you think they’ll last through the first few episodes you might want to hold off on drafting them in favor of a more minor character that could easily meet their maker in an earlier episode.
We had our Game of Thrones Death Pool draft last night, and it was a lot of fun. We each are kicking in $45, points and money will be allocated after each episode and at the end of the season, and the ultimate winner will get an authentic knock-off Hand of the King pin purchased from Amazon. There were five of us, and we had five rounds in the draft. I drafted second and am pretty happy with my team, which consists of Melisandre, Qyburn, Baric Dondarrion, Yohn Royce, and Gilly.
Let the GOT Death Pool begin!
That’s where Mr. Sports came in. That’s the name I’ve given to the harsh, foul-mouthed, angry personality that sometimes takes over during TV sports broadcasts when one of my favorite teams is playing in a big game. Mr. Sports wants his teams to win so badly that any adversity or bad break causes him to surge to the forefront and launch into vicious tirades about referees, opposing players, the fates, or even the opposing coach’s wife or Mom and Dad celebrating an impending win. And, because college basketball is a game where so many bounces or debatable foul calls can happen, it’s prime territory for Mr. Sports.
This year, again, no one is going to beat those overwhelming odds. 
When the NCAA Tournament is on, that means the Buck Back competition is on, too. I’ve 
I’m sorry that the Buckeyes lost, of course, but the fact that I didn’t watch the game and agonize over every turnover, missed layup, and defensive breakdown meant that I avoided most of the awful fan-pain that I would have endured otherwise. Instead of feeling like someone had kicked my guts in when Dayton made the winning shot and the Ohio State careers of Aaron Craft and Lenzelle Smith Jr. came to an end, the game was sort of like something that happened in an alternative universe — a bit more abstract, and a little less real.
That’s not going to be easy, because Dayton is a very good team, as well as being a great basketball school with a rich heritage. The Flyers play in the tough Atlantic 10, where they finished 10-6 and lost a very close game in the A-10 Tournament. UD has size and scoring. In fact, their leading scorer is Jordan Sibert, a former Ohio State Buckeye who came in as a heralded recruit and left when he wasn’t getting a lot of playing time. He’ll be looking to prove something in this game — and that’s the first intriguing storyline. The second is Dayton coach Archie Miller, who was on Thad Matta’s staff at Ohio State. He’ll also be hoping to make a statement.
On Tuesday I watched my first game officiated under the new approach, and it sucked. The Ohio State Buckeyes played the Ohio University Bobcats, and the game quickly devolved into a whistle-blowing and free throw-shooting affair. 
This year, there’s been a lot of talk — from people not named Charles Barkley — about the Big Ten being the best conference in basketball. Seven teams from the Old Conference made it to the Big Dance, and so far they’re represented the league well. The Big Ten’s record after the round of 64 is 6-1, with the only hiccup being Wisconsin’s dismal performance against Mississippi in a game where the Badgers simply could not put the ball into the basket. The Big Ten’s top-seeded teams, Indiana and Ohio State, both won by wide margins, Michigan State and Michigan played well in convincing wins, Illinois survived some poor shooting to beat Colorado, and Minnesota spanked UCLA in a surprising upset. Other conferences that were touted prior to the tournament, such as the Big East and the Mountain West, did not fare so well during the first round of play.
Obviously, I’m sorry that the Buckeyes could not hold their lead and could not make their goal of the national championship game. Their loss, however, does not take away from what has been a wonderful season for the team and its fans. This is a group that battled through adversity and tough stretches and came back to play extremely well down the stretch and in the NCAA Tournament. Much as I would like to have seen the Buckeyes win and get the chance to knock off Kentucky, there is no shame in losing by two points in a hard-fought game to a basketball powerhouse like Kansas.
Webner House 