This may just be my northeast arrogance showing, in fact I’m fairly sure it is, but Indianapolis is pretty boring. Not to bash these Midwestern “metropolises,” but I was in the Circle City for a good seven hours last month. I wasn’t all that enthralled. And the sky was cloudy. Actually, I don’t think I’ve been in Indiana when the weather was nice. Ever.

Perhaps things will be more exciting there this weekend since they’re apparently playing some pretty important basketball games, not that they mean anything to me anymore.

A week ago, my bracket was in good shape. In fact it was in better shape than I was after spending twelve hours a day on the couch and eating far too many pretzels. I led in two pools and was within striking distance in a third, albeit marred by facebook.com’s stupid underdog scoring.

By Sunday, Gonzaga, Duke, Villanova and Connecticut were all unceremoniously bounced from the tournament leaving my bracket in shambles, but when I think that the winner of ESPN’s Tournament Challenge picked George Mason by accident I feel a little bit better.

Gonzaga flat out blew its chance, and it makes sense for Duke to not be there since it couldn’t match up with LSU’s 16-foot-10, 5,012-pound Glen “Big Baby” Davis. The same goes for ‘Nova, which was clearly scared away from the basket by Joakim Noah’s, um, lovable face.

The Huskies have no real excuse since they lost to a commuter school that no one knew existed last month, but since they, and my other three choices won’t have to spend this weekend in that gray, dull heart of the Hoosier state, one might say they, in the end, are actually the winners. This conveniently makes me the winner.

If I really need to make a pick for fifth place I’m pulling hard for George Whoever it is since if they don’t win it all, everyone will forget this ever happened. If they do win we’ll still forget, but at least we’ll all feel nice for a few minutes.

Pick: LSU