All the cool kids are participating in CBI CRAZINESS!

Damn straight it is!

I haven’t worked in an office in more than a decade—and no, certain friends in Mason Nation, that doesn’t mean I’ve been unemployed the entire time, but feel free to crack on me on Twitter anyway—but I imagine productivity in Dilbert land is spiraling downward today as worker bees ponder their NCAA Tournament brackets, on which they will not bet real money (snicker snicker snort snort).

(Parenthetical tangent: This reminds me of high school and when Loyal Reader Matt was running the annual pool among our group of friends that sat together at lunch. He was collecting money one year when the principal walked by and blew a gasket, taking all our brackets, throwing them out and telling us we’d be in a lot of trouble if he ever saw us gambling on school property again. What did he know? I parlayed my C-minus grades and jones for gambling and college basketball into a ragingly successful career!!)

Anyway, those worker bees poring over brackets today are a bunch of losers who need a life. How can they waste their time on something so trivial and worthless? Nobody cares about this NCAA Tournament thingy. We all know where the real action is at this time of year: CBI Craziness!

That’s right, folks: In honor of Hofstra’s appearance in the CBI,  I’m organizing the world’s biggest (re: first) CBI bracket pool, dubbed, as you may have guessed by now, CBI Craziness. Check out the CBI bracket here.

Rules are simple: Correct first round wins are worth one point apiece, second round wins are worth two points, semifinal wins four points and a championship series win eight points. Entry is free, except for the $1,000 handling fee per bracket (hey it works for Ticketmaster!). You are encouraged to participate as often as you’d like (this is for those of us in the audience who will pick their alma mater to win it all and then pick another, possibly saner bracket).

Also, any bracket that doesn’t end with Hofstra as champion is automatically disqualified.

Tiebreakers are as follows:

—Pick the number of games in the CBI championship series

—Pick the champion of the other tournament that matters now, the CIT

—Pick the champion of that tournament that mostly nobody gives a crap about, the NIT

—Pick the champion in that tournament nobody gives a crap about, the NCAA

—If there is still a tie after this, victor will be determined by a Flying Dutchmen trivia contest

Here's an example of how you should submit your bracket:

FIRST ROUND

Hofstra over IUPUI

Princeton over Duquesne

Saint Louis over Indiana State

Akron over Green Bay

VCU over George Washington

Charleston over Eastern Kentucky

Boston U. over Oregon State

Morehead State over Colorado State

SECOND ROUND

Hofstra over Princeton

Saint Louis over Akron

VCU over Charleston

Morehead State over Boston U.

SEMIFINALS

Hofstra over Morehead State

VCU over Saint Louis

CHAMPIONSHIP

Hofstra over VCU in 2 games

Winner gets two 2010 season tickets to Hofstra football. Send your entries to me at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com by 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Yes, I know the first game starts at 7. My CBI Craziness, my rules! Any questions, email me or find me on Twitter. Have fun and good luck!

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.