By Randy Horick

Dee from Atlanta was the first to call, a week ago Sunday night. Barely two hours after the NCAA Tournament pairings appeared, he was on the line to compare brackets.

“I’m taking Long Island U. for two rounds,” he declared. “Think ‘burning bush.’ I had a vision.”

“Was peyote involved in this vision?”

“Also, I’m taking Temple to the Elite Eight.”

“Oh, I have Temple all over Minnesota,” I replied, serenely confident. “The Big 10 stinks. Plus I’ve got Miami of Ohio over Clemson.”

“Oh, and I’m on drugs?”

“Clemson hasn’t beaten anybody decent in a month.”

“OK, what about Marquette and Providence?”

It begins like this every March around my house. The phone rings incessantly for an entire, whacked-out week. The fax keeps egesting brackets submitted by friends around the country. Productivity plummets.

In a way that only a junkie could appreciate, it is a week that culminates in four full days of mainlining euphoria.

On Monday morning before 9, Dee called back, touting Iowa State over Cincinnati and spitting coffee on himself when he heard my pronouncement that UMass would topple both Louisville and New Mexico.

By 9:30, Charlie had called, ostensibly about business, but the conversation gravitated to his pick of 14th-seeded St. Mary’s over Wake Forest.

Around 10, an advertising executive (we’ll call her Rhoda) was on the line enlisting my yearly advice as a silent partner in her office pool. She had a good feeling about UT-Chattanooga. “No way,” I admonished her. “Take Georgia.”

Before lunch, a fax arrived from Bill, who, as usual, marked his beloved Hoosiers to reach the regional final.

Then Tim called from Columbus. “I’m cleared for takeoff!” he shouted (meaning he’d received a dispensation from wife Ann). “Where are we going?”

Tim and I have a tradition. Almost every year, we attend one round of the tournament in person. In 1987 we met in Louisville, where Rick Pitino’s oddjob Providence team jolted Georgetown. With Bill, we were in New Orleans when Indiana won the title.

In 1988 we went to Kansas City, where Tim proudly recalls striking up a conversation with Guy Lewis, the retired coach of Houston’s Phi Slamma Jamma teams, while the two stood at men’s room urinals.

In 1992 we met in Cincinnati to see Ohio State and Jimmy Jackson rip Connecticut. The next year, Tim drove to Nashville to see six tournament games in three days at Memorial Gym.

This year, despite Tim’s exhortations of “You’re hairless if you don’t go,” I begged off another tournament road trip. So Tim took the only logical step: He invited himself down for the weekend.

Attending a tournament game is always memorable, but there is nothing quite like ensconcing yourself in front of the TV from mid-Thursday through late Sunday and taking in the entire 48-game spectacle. It’s a couch potato’s odyssey that carries you from Detroit to Salt Lake to Charlotte, interrupted only by meals and beverage resupply missions. When the first two rounds end, you feel like a bummed little kid the day after Christmas.

By Thursday afternoon, the den had become Tournament Central, with the telecasts blaring, phones ringing, and refreshment flowing. Before the first tipoff, Dee called to bemoan the unusual number of high seeds that appeared vulnerable.

“I don’t feel good about my picks at all,” I commiserated. “Which means I should feel good, since when I feel good about my picks, I crater.”

By 2 p.m. we felt very good. “Rhoda” called from her office to crow that we were the only participants in her pool to take California correctly over Princeton, and she felt emboldened to talk trash to her coworkers.

Unfortunately, the first game was the high-water mark for my prognostications. By Thursday night, a tide of bad news began rolling in. Rhode Island: out. Indiana: out. Maryland: out.

“South Alabama had Arizona beat,” I carped as I red-lined my incorrect pick. “Nice call on UMass, too, bullethead,” said Tim, as I crossed out the Minutemen.

“Don’t even say it,” phoned Bill the next morning, anticipating a taunt over his trippin’ projection for Indiana. “Thanks,” I told him. “The one time I finally pick ’em, they stink.”

By Friday afternoon, the full extent of the disaster was evident. The upsets I had foreseen (Miami, Oklahoma, Georgetown) failed to materialize. Others of no help to me took their places.

“Coppin State?!” yelled Dee into the phone. “Coppin State?”

“Fogler may be coppin’ a ticket to Rutgers,” snorted Tim.

Not long after UT-Chattanooga smacked third-seeded Georgia, I heard from “Rhoda.” “I wanted to take UTC, but no-o,” she chided. “Tulsa will make up for it,” I reassured her.

“How we doing?” Bruce queried later that evening. “I went with all your picks.” We still have Tulsa, I told him.

In front of Siam Cafe’s big-screen TV, Tim and I ate masaman curry and watched Ole Miss become the fourth of the vaunted Southeastern Conference’s five entries to crash on takeoff. Even before that, we had heard from Dee again. “SEC,” his phone message said. “Sucking on Every Court.”

On Saturday afternoon, Tim and I desperately needed a Cincinnati win, but we howled for Iowa State. “BOO-yeah!” yelled Tim, in the manner of ESPN’s Stuart Smith, when the Cyclones drilled a long, late 3-pointer. “Shtrait butta!”

“BOO-yeah!” I roared as Providence broke Duke’s press for an exclamatory dunk in the final minute of their game—though Duke’s loss opened another gaping wound in my bracket. “Can I get a WITNESS from the congregation!”

“I just want you to know,” phoned Bruce after the bloodbath, “that my brother called to say I’m in last place in his office pool.”

Nobody, observed Tim, had done very well in his office’s pool. As recording secretary, he was still marking the brackets late into Saturday night. First on SportsCenter and then on a special tournament roundup, we watched highlights we had already seen 10 times.

Late late, ESPN aired a game from the women’s tournament. Somewhere in all of that, Bill called to talk more basketball, but we never heard the phone. Papers all askew, Tim was snoring on the sofa, and I had nodded off in my big chair.

How it looks from the La-Z-Boy (NCAA Tournament Edition, Forecast Slightly Revised)

East: North Carolina over California; Louisville over Texas. Regional Final: North Carolina over Louisville.

Midwest: Minnesota over Clemson; UCLA over Iowa St. Regional Final: UCLA over Minnesota.

Southeast: Kansas over Arizona; Providence over UT-Chattanooga. Regional Final: Kansas over Providence.

West: Kentucky over St. Joseph’s; Stanford over Utah. Regional Final: Kentucky over Stanford.

Final Four: Kansas over North Carolina; UCLA over Kentucky.

Championship: Kansas over UCLA.

Women’s Tournament

East: North Carolina over George Washington; Alabama over Notre Dame. Regional Final: North Carolina over Alabama.

Midwest: Connecticut over Illinois; Tennessee over Colorado. Regional Final: Connecticut over Tennessee.

Mideast: LSU over Old Dominion; Louisiana Tech over Florida. Regional Final: Louisiana Tech over LSU.

West: Stanford over Virginia; Georgia over Vanderbilt. Regional Final: Stanford over Georgia.

Final Four: Connecticut over North Carolina; Stanford over Louisiana Tech.

Championship: Stanford over Connecticut.

West: Stanford over Virginia; Georgia over Vanderbilt. Regional Final: Stanford over Georgia.

Final Four: Connecticut over North Carolina; Stanford over Louisiana Tech.

Championship: Stanford over Connecticut.