Not all of us are basketball fans, but when it comes to March, one thing rises above all the jibber-jabber of the world and stands as a glowing beacon of guestimation and lost productivity for all mankind: MARCH MADNESS. The first weekend of back-to-back-to-back-to… well, you get it… basketball has just gotten under way. Rather than discuss all the matchups (and delight in how early Harvard is going to bite the dust), we’re bringing you golden nuggets of prediction from our two literate people who occasionally browse ESPN.com resident experts in college basketball: Seth Kleinschmidt and Julien Ouellet. So kick back, pray for LIU-Brooklyn to pull off an upset, and get that CBS music stuck in your head.

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Instead of competing against millions of ESPN junkies for a random cash prize, why not help fight childhood obesity with your March Madness bracket? March to Health, a fundraiser started by Lex Rofes ’13, aims at doing just that. Before submitting their bracket to the school pools on the site, sports fans are asked to contribute to the charity ‘nPlay, a foundation supported by over 35 athletes (e.g., Grant Hill, Paul Pierce…) that promotes physical fitness in high schools. The added bonus here is that student-athletes are allowed to participate: the NCAA cleared the organization on the simple basis that “it doesn’t constitute gambling: there are no prizes except your own pride” and feeling of doing the right thing.

To Lex, starting March to Health “just made sense.” After starting a similar program in his senior year of high school, “it felt weird and shallow coming back to regular office pools.” So with the help of a few friends and the Sports Business Club, Lex raised about $5,000 last March in the fundraiser’s first year. “But people missed the smaller feel, being able to trash talk friends and compete in smaller subgroups,” he said. This year, 12 schools (including Harvard, UPenn, and Stanford) and a handful of companies have their own subgroups on the website — Lex hopes to add even more next year.

Since he feels that March to Health should keep its college vibe, Lex hopes his project will continue on after he graduates and looks to create similar fundraisers in future jobs. In this case, “it’s really students helping students. [People] try to push aside the positive value of sports, against what Brown is meant to do. But I think sports can be used in so many ways.”

Kim Perley / Herald

Waterfire is celebrating the NCAA tournament in Providence tonight along with Dunkin’ Donuts. The special edition of Barnaby Evans’ ’75 combustible art installation starts at 7:30 p.m. downtown and runs until 11.

UPDATE: Evans appeared on the Rhode Show today to talk about tonight’s event:

Remember 1979? With No. 12 Cornell’s upset victory today over No. 5 Temple in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, an Ivy League team has a shot to go past the second round for the first time in 31 years.  In that year’s tournament, Penn made it all the way to the Final Four after a huge second-round upset of Dean Smith’s No. 1 North Carolina Tar Heels. Still, eventual winner Michigan State—who had some guy named Earvin “Magic” Johnson—smoked Penn in the Final Four by 34 points. Since then, five Ivies have made it to the second round only to bow out. The Big Red will have a chance to avoid that fate on Sunday against the winner of the Wisconsin-Wofford game.

UPDATE: Wofford fell just short against UWisc. Looks like there will be a lot of red at the Cornell game.

After closing out the regular season with a 3-0 win over Dartmouth on Sunday, the men’s soccer team had to wait to find out if they had earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Bears were rewarded on Monday evening with a place in the 48-team field.

Brown (10-2-5, 5-2-0 Ivy) will host Stony Brook (6-9-4) on Thursday night at 7:00 at Stevenson Field.

Check Wednesday’s Herald for an article by Katie Wood recapping the Dartmouth game and previewing the NCAA opener.