What’s the Madness All About?
After I filled out my March Madness tournament bracket for our office pool a few weeks ago (OK fine, my boyfriend actually filled it out for me after much cajoling) I (he) put down University of Florida to go all the way. As I’m a non-member of the basketball intelligentsia, I was quite amazed by my his ability to pick the teams and his probable foresight to pick Florida as the champs. Then I found out they’re the defending national champs, so it’s not such a surprising pick. By the way…I will never fully understand how men’s brains are hot-wired to retain obscure sports facts and statistics, like who pitched the shut-out at Dodger Stadium in 198X or the night that so-and-so hit his 100th RBI. But, I digress…


Nevertheless, what I care about is whether I get a couple of Andrew Jacksons out of this tournament when all is said and done (minus the BF’s 12% commission). What I did know was that the Gator’s colors are blue and orange, much like Shopping.com. What synergy! Must be an omen… ;)
I figured I should support my “team” throughout the tournament and show some company pride at the same time by sporting blue and orange garb, so I peeked at the different ways I could quickly outfit my life.
As you may have gathered, I’m a self-admitted fair-weather basketball fan (I love football and baseball though) so I don’t want to spend too much $$ on my new Gators gear. Luckily, I found a sassy baby tee that all the ladies will love, for around $30. One item that the ladies are also into this month according to Shopping.com’s search logs are sterling silver Gators toe rings. And yes, I was surprised to find that college mascot toe rings existed.
I don’t have a dog (yet), but I really loved the idea of someone else wearing the paraphernalia for me, and it would still count as MY team spirit. I wonder if my mom’s cat could swing this.
Since my house feels like an igloo (even in March/April), I wear slippers around all the time. Hence my delight when I came across these orange and blue Florida basketball shoe slippers. They’re fully licensed by the NCAA too in case you have standards to uphold.
And just like that, in just a few clicks, I am suddenly a card-carrying Florida fan. Looks like other people have the same idea…after peeking at our database of popular search terms on our site, searches for “Florida Gators” is outpacing “Butler Bulldogs,” the team the Gators take on tonight, by an obscene 5,000 percent. Another omen!