How to Cope With Your March Madness

College basketball is hell. For a seasoned March Madness veteran, each squeak of a sneaker dragging across a gymnasium floor is blood curdling, unhinging even the most stable of minds with each game-changing swish.

And yet, you just can’t look away! You love this game, and if there’s even a chance that you correctly chose those underdog teams to come out on top and validate your tournament bracket predictions, you’re the Nostradamus of sports. You don’t care that the odds are mind-boggling. You’re *sure* this is your year.

Half-court buzzer beaters, obvious calls that idiot ref missed--his feet definitely weren’t planted. What happens on the court happens, but what comes afterwards is up to us. While we can’t un-see the things we’ve seen, we can learn to cope.

Your 9-year-old cousin’s beginner’s luck

Here’s a fun fact: your 9-year-old cousin predicted almost every game winner correctly for the first two rounds--his predictions based on his favorite colors.

Take a deep breath. Rather than sob in the shower for hours--like last year--what a wonderful opportunity this is to be a proud older cousin and live vicariously through Timmy’s bracket victory! Treat his success as your success, and you can feel good knowing you’re a positive family role model.

Besides, he’ll never get this lucky again, right? Please?!

Hear no evil, speak no Villanova

So a number one seed lost to a number eight seed in the second round. Okay, great! No big deal; let’s just sit down for a second and go to our happy place for a minute. You’ve got this.

Villanova is now Voldemort. If you don’t talk about it or say the team’s name, it’s like it never happened. Just stay positive, and keep it out of your life. Even if it’s just part of the word, like just “villa” or “nova.” Phase those out, too. Cancel your trip to Latin America and quit reading up on those exoplanet discoveries. Everything is fine.

Game.

Never.

Happened.

You’re good at other things…

Oh, your fave team Duke felt like losing in the second round this year, too? Welp, you had them winning it all, but I’m sure Coach K is fine with it! Let’s also be fine with it. And lie down on the floor with that garbage can nearby just in case you have to Duk--PUKE. Puke, not Duke. Yikes!

Hey, what a great time to focus on how you’re good at word jumbles! And all those times you found Waldo first before anyone? Nobody finds that striped little man better than you! Pat yourself on the back, and try not to throw up.

When it was just ONE point

Just one missed peach in the friggin’ basket??? And it’s over??? I know. You’re paralyzed and wondering, “Would it have been too much to ask for Michigan to continue its Cinderella run one more game? Why did Derrick Walton Jr. have to miss that shot and turn my only sweet 16-round upset prediction back into a pumpkin?” This was the game you put some real money on, dammit.

You can relieve that throbbing vein in your forehead by firing up your keyboard and getting started on those condescending “this is how you SHOULD have done it” letters to coaches and players, but would never actually send--hey, wait! Don’t--DON’T-oh. You sent them.

Calm blue ocean. Namaste. When’s the next round start again? Now if you’ll excuse me, I just have to go walk slowly into a lake made of my and Coach Beilein’s tears for a moment.

Author’s note: Go Tarheels.