The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG -- T.J. Scott has been a basketball player and fan since he was about 4. So it should come as no surprise that the WP head coach follows the sport well beyond the high school season that just ended two weeks ago.

But because of a nationwide pastime known as "brackets" he's been much more excited about March Madness as a spectator here in recent years.

It's believed some $2.4 billion changes hands across the country each year between basketball and football playoff observers placing small wagers on the ultimate outcome.

"It's a lot more fun when you have a rooted interest," Scott said during a recent evening visit to Coppei Cafe to watch a Sweet 16 game on the restaurant's new HD TV. "In the past, I'd usually stop following college basketball after Gonzaga dropped out. But now the brackets keep me watching."

And, they keep him busy. For the first time this year, he's taken over from J.E. McCaw as the Waitsburg brackets master, collecting everyone's most (and often least, as he joked) educated predictions for the outcome of the men's NCAA playoffs all the way to the Final 4 in New Orleans this weekend.

He and other basketball fans and brackets participants will be at Coppei Cafe to watch the Final 4 games Saturday and the championship game Monday.Nearly 60 fans of the sport (or merely of a little benign wagering) have filled out the bracket form, a dizzying array of possible matchups that resemble two adjoining family trees with the title game as the last descendant in the middle. Most entrants picked the Kentucky Wildcats as their favorite and with good reason. The Cats are the winningest team in men's college basketball. They lead all schools in NCAA tournament appearances with 52, have 109 postseason wins and rank second after UCLA in NCAA championships.

The second-most popular pick to win the NCAA title is North Carolina and the third Michigan, which has already been shut out of the competition.

"Some people were done right off the bat," said Scott, as he rummaged through his file folder of brackets forms while chatting with Jay Potts, who picked Baylor as his finalist. Baylor went down against top-seeded Kentucky, 82-70, on Sunday. The Wildcats, who advance to the Final 4 to face Louisville, dominated the Bears after five minutes of play led by Anthony Davis.

The brackets are based on points with correct predictions on the first round worth five points, the second eight, the third 15, the fourth 25, the semifinal 40 and the final 60. But guessing the winner right isn't a magic formula to clinch the pot. The winner has to build up the most points at each stage below that as well.

"It's fun to do," said Potts, assistant soccer and assistant basketball coach for WP. "It extends the basketball season. I watch the Final 4 anyway, but if you have a stake in it, it's more fun."

He admitted Baylor was kind of a "dark horse," but his father-in-law was a Bear and the team was seeded third.

Scott himself picked Ohio State, which got past topseeded Syracuse 77-70 to get into the Final 4 and faces Kansas in New Orleans.

"This year, Ohio State in going to be the champion because that's whom I picked," he said with tongue-in-cheek confidence.

After doing brackets for about a decade, Scott has won it twice. But even when his team exits the playoffs early, he stays with the tournament until the title game.

"I watch until the bitter end," he said.

March Madness Bring Your Brackets

March 31 3-8 p.m. April 2 6-8:30 p.m. Coppei Cafe