Bracketology is so dumb I won't even bother with a creative title

All true bracketologists wear tiny handcuffs on their jackets

Bracketology. The study of... brackets. In general, I get very confused when I am watching SportsCenter and ESPN shoves some hideously absurd new graphically-enhanced segment down my throat. The Mt. Rushmore of Sports, starring Rick Reilly and a green screen! The epic blunder "Who's Now?", where Stuart Scott reminded us all that it's not what you say, it's how funky you say it.

The way I see it, SportsCenter has the simplest task: Deliver a collection of highlights while being witty and observant. Unlike most shows, they don't even need to write plots or make anchors pretend to marry each other. They just cut up the hundreds of hours of wonderful sports that are played each day across the world and show us the best moments. I love watching sports highlights! I do not love a) Athletes reading rehearsed comments about upcoming games b) Lengthy entertainment-based segments that features few highlights and many talking heads.

There is a scene in the now-defunct show Sports Night when a new segment producer can't understand why he can't feature every pitch from a pivotal at-bat in his highlight reel. He argues that every pitch was important because the pitcher set the batter up with his early fastballs and caught him off-guard with an offspeed pitch. All with men on base!

This is what I want from SportsCenter, I want them to want to show me MORE highlights, MORE scenes from today's action. SportsCenter has a full hour of time to fill, there should be highlights from every single baseball game played. Never should we cut directly to the box score of a game without a series of highlights. I cannot accept the sacrifice of highlights for Emmitt Smith's commentary. Ever.

So Bracketology. It's a sham. Go ahead, fill up the comments and tell me why it matters, but I bet you can't.

Joe Lunardi, pictured sucking the soul out of sports

What is the point of predicting who will get into the NCAA tournament when there are still games to be played? And the double absurdity is asking someone who has NO SAY in who gets into the tournament to predict who will get into the tournament. There is no point in predicting who will make the NCAA tournament before the last game has been played. If a surprise team wins their conference tournament, BOOM the landscape shifts. If a bubble team craps a brick near the end of the season against a low-RPI opponent, BOOM landscape shifts. Until that last game is played next Sunday, it is absolutely pointless to predict who will get in. And even after that, it's not like a computer decides who makes the tournament. A bunch of Athletic Directors do. And unless we have brain scans of everyone in that room, I think we're wasting our time. Hmm, that Auburn AD looks mighty hungry. I bet that makes him belligerent. Belligerence is related to stand-offishness so he is probably going to support mid-major teams on the bubble. Eureka!

No. Stop it. Stop it now.

Hey ESPN: If you put me on payroll, I will predict which amateur baseball players will make the Hall of Fame. Seriously, I can do it! I will have just as high of a success rate as any of your analysts had predicting football games last year. Does it embarrass you when stories like this come out? It appears Rob Neyer and Keith Law are good analysts (we already knew that), so why do you keep the bad ones on board? On a sports team, players that don't contribute are not placed onto the field, or not offered contracts, or play for the Detroit Lions. At ESPN, guys who are not good analysts, are given airtime, columns, radio minutes, and are never held accountable for their terrible analyses and advice. Hey Stephen A. Smith, there's an opening at the top of AIG - I think you'd be the perfect fit.