A moment: North Carolina teams' demise a reason to pause to reflect

Sure, there are more important reasons to be sad than the fact that there are no North Carolina teams left in the Sweet 16.

And we won't even tell you how long a record that has been. It will just make it that much harder.

But as we sit and look at our absolutely devastated brackets for this year's March Madness tournament, we can only blame one person -- Warren Buffett. He jinxed us -- and a lot of other fans, too. Just ask those who picked Ohio State to make it all the way to the Final Four.

He is the one who offered a billion dollars to anyone who came up with a perfect bracket.

He is the one who made us all sit back and pick conservatively.

He is the one who made it likely that the person who will win just about any office bracket pool is the girl who chose "the prettiest uniforms" or that annoying guy who simply closed his eyes and pointed at a team.

We were doomed the moment there were stakes, real stakes.

So as we mourn the fact that the Tar Heel state will not claim a title this year, we can take solace in the fact that there will be a real Cinderella story in this year's tournament.

And we can also take comfort in the fact that we are not the only ones who won't be any richer this time around.

Published in Editorials on March 24, 2014 11:08 AM