DealZone

Morgan Stanley’s Vishwanath Tirupattur had a creative excuse for missing work on Tuesday.

While watching the finals of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament, the senior bond analyst fell asleep on his couch after the game went late into overtime.

When he woke up, the senior collateralized debt obligation analyst winced in pain. (CDOs are giant bonds that largely fed the leveraged buyout and mergers-and-acquisitions boom until last year, when the collapse of the structures helped spark a crisis in credit markets.)

“Vishy,” as he goes by, had sprained his back and neck. When colleagues asked why he didn’t show up at work the next day, Tirupattur claimed “a sport’s injury.”

The analyst, a Memphis fan, said he felt more pain when Memphis collapsed in the waning seconds of the game, missing several free throws, allowing Kansas to tie the game and later win 75-68 in overtime to claim the national championship.