March is here ladies and gentlemen. That means that the temperature is rising (LOL, unless you're in Arkansas), spring break is close, and most importantly: March Madness. Teams all over the country will watch on Selection Sunday in hopes of being one of the 68 team chosen to embark on a magical journey in hopes of bringing a NCAA championship back to their school.
{Spoiler alert, 67 of them lose}
Besides the joy of non-stop basketball coverage on like 6 different channels *shutters with excitement*, we also get to fill out one, if not multiple, brackets *almost passes out from excitement*. Filling out brackets is no doubt one of the best parts of the tournament. Whether you're filling out one just for fun, filling out a bunch of crazy ones, or placing them into multiple pools in hopes of winning some money (i.e. me), filling out a bracket and watching it play out makes the tournament worth watching. But how on earth do you even begin to fill one of these things out?! I mean, I can't even tell you where some of these schools are, let alone anything about their basketball team! Don't worry your pretty little head, my dears, because I'm gonna give you some strategies that you can use to pick your bracket! Some don't even involve knowing anything basketball related!
1. Seeds
This one's pretty self explanatory, you just pick whichever seed is higher. The only problem with this way is that it never ever goes down this way. The #8 vs #9 games are always close and sometimes the #15 beats the #2! ITS MADNESS! Also if this is the method you choose you will eventually have to pick between all the #1 seeds. (This has only ever happened once in the history of the tournament. 2008)
2. Conferences
The ACC is to basketball what the SEC is to football. This kind of hatred has lead many people to pick their brackets where a certain conference just absolutely fails. The issue with this method is that you will undoubtedly have some same conference match-ups and then your head will explode because one must lose.
*The next 3 are some of my favorites and require absolutely no knowledge of basketball or stats or players*
3. Flip a coin
Step 1. Get a quarter
Step 2. For every matchup, designate one team heads and the other tails
Step 3. Flip coin
Step 4. Fill in team that won the coin toss.
Step 5. Do the rest of the bracket
4. Mascot
This is my absolute favorite way of picking and I always fill out at least 2 of my brackets this way every year. Lookup the mascots for each team and then pick your bracket by cutest, strangest, or worst mascot!
(If you're doing it by cutest then 90% of the time the Wofford Terriers will win)
5. Color scheme
Pretty self-explanatory, you pick your bracket according to which colors/uniforms you like best. A lot of them will be similar so you may wanna look up specific colors (instead of just red its cardinal, crimson etc.). Once again, no knowledge of the game required!
Hopefully one of these methods can help you in picking your bracket this year, but no matter how you do just remember one thing….
The odds of picking a perfect bracket are over 9-quintillion to one!
