It's Madness, Baby, Madness!

Screw Christmas cause today just might be the most magical time of the year- it's March Madness time. We may have no clue as to who is going to win, but we do know that the next couple of weeks will feature several last minute game-winning shots, shocking upsets by colleges we've never heard of, and office pools being won by elderly secretaries over basketball fans who claim to know everything there is to know about Wisconsin-Milwaukee. How big is the NCAA Tournament? Between time spent pondering office pools, constant checking of internet sites, and "sick days", businesses claim that March Madness costs business 1.4B in lost productivity. Throw in the fact that the first day of the Tourney also happens to coincede with St. Patrick's day and well, SFist has been laying the groundwork to calling in sick by "coughing" as much as possible and whining about how bad we feel to whoever asks how we were doing.

Locally, the Big Dance features three teams: perennial tournament chokers Stanford, Stockton's own Pacific University, and tiny St. Mary's of Moraga. St. Mary's is the kind of school that makes the tournament what it is. They're small, the "student atheletes" who play for them really are student athletes, and nobody outside the Bay Area has heard of them. Hell, we've lived here for over ten years and we've barely heard of St. Mary's. And yeah, they'll probably get bounced after the first or second round, but nobody can say they didn't have fun while it lasted. Pacific is up first on the schedule as they take on Pittsburgh bright and early at 9:40 AM. On Friday, eighth seeded Stanford will take on Miss. State at 6:45 and St. Mary's plays the Southern Illinois Salukis at 11:45 AM.

Having done this a few times, we know that the most important thing about following the tourney is a good sports bar: the more TVs, the better. Things will be a little tricky today as tourney watchers will have to coexist with hordes of green-clad party-goers celebrating a proud ethnic groups every stereotype, but we're sure the serious sports bars will be where the action's at. Which is why SFist heartily recommends Green's on Polk Street and the Kezar Pub on Stanyan.

For a full schedule of games being broadcast on KPIX, go here.

Image of Ed Pinckney of Villanova Rocking a Young SFist's World in 1985 from ESPN