When we started bracketing this morning Sue Donohoe warned us of our mission:

"Provide relative balance to the bracket. Relative does not mean equal...Provide comparable competition within the bracket. Comparable does not mean equal."

I'm not sure we heard her properly, or believed her entirely, when she said it. We can balance the bracket, we optimistically thought, and plowed ahead. And then, slammed up against the (by my count) more than 10 different factors that have to be considered in each and every placement in the bracket, we believe her. Some times really close has to be good enough.

And Donohoe seems to think we're doing well. Though there have been a few tense moments, she claims there hasn't been any blood like the real committee sees. That's small comfort as we work through lunch, dropping the first round sites on top of the bracket positions we've already picked.