HIGH POINT, N.C. - For the next few weeks, fans will be consumed with college basketball.
Sixty-four teams will be whittled down 32. Then, it's the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four, then the Championship game. If you're watching, you probably filled out a bracket to track your progress.
But one High Point man takes tournament brackets to a whole new level.
At Danny Cronin's house, March is a sacred month. For him, it's been that way for more than 30 years, as he combines the love for drawing with the love for basketball.
“I started in 1988 when I was in eighth grade,” he said.
With 35 bucks and six hours, Cronin creates a carefully crafted bracket on an 8 by 4 foot poster board.
“Some of the guys I work with, I’ll show them the pictures and they ask, do you do your bracket? And I say - I don't do my prediction bracket on this, and spend all the time on that,” he said.
Region by region, game after game, the unpredictable nature of it all is tracked on the massive bracket.
“UNCG hung in there tough against Gonzaga. We lost by four,” he points out, “Of course, we saw a buzzer beater earlier today with Loyola-Chicago beating Miami, so that's one ACC team already out.”
As for his prediction…
“I am a Michigan fan but I have to pick Michigan State to win the whole tournament,” Cronin admits.
His son's handwriting leaves a lot to be desired, so for now, 5-year-old Carter will stick to hoops. But this tradition is one Cronin's hoping to pass on to his kids.
“My hope is that once they get older, and gain interest in the tradition of doing the board, if they're artistic and they want to do it eventually one day I'd like to do it together,” he said.