March Madness began with 68 Division I college teams, but now as we are approaching the end of this crazy tournament and the month of March is behind us, we are now left with four teams remaining. Many people across the country like to partake in the tradition of making a bracket for the tournament, whether it be just for fun or competing with a group of friends or colleagues, but it is truly one in a million for someone to have a perfect bracket. Who could have predicted that UCLA and Villanova would have been out of the Final Four, let alone Villanova, the number one seed being out of the tournament after the second round? So, what is is like for someone to sit down and make a bracket being so confident and then seeing a number seven seed, like South Carolina, making it to this stage of the tournament?
Here are the five stages of making a March Madness bracket:
1. Entering with confidence
Whether you are actually a dedicated college basketball fan or making a bracket just for fun, there is a certain level of confidence in you when you sit down to fill yours out. If you are that passionate fan, you think you know everything about every team and the odds of an upset in the first round, so you must be right, and if you are just making a bracket without knowing anything you are confident that there is no way the number one seed is going to lose in the first round, or any round for that matter.
2. When you did not predict the upsets in the first round
Yes, it is definitely frustrating when you do not predict an upset, but at this point you are still confident in your bracket because it is only the first round and odds are the team that won will probably lose in the next round.
3. When a team you had in the Final Four is eliminated
This is when it starts to get real nerve-racking. It is definitely easier to predict games at the beginning than it is as the tournament gets closer and closer to the end. If you get a couple of games wrong in the beginning that is totally fine, it is impossible to get everything right. However, when one of the teams you put in the Final Four loses in the third round, let's say, it is more of a consequence in any pool you are in, as it affects your entire outcome of the tournament.
4. When the team you had winning loses
This is when all hell breaks lose and the freak out begins. Any chance of you winning is eliminated, just like your team.
5. Watching the championship game while pretending to be okay
Pretending to be interested and happy for the teams when you actually despise them both.
As I said, it is nearly impossible to have a perfect bracket for March Madness. It doesn't matter if you are a huge fan of the game or doing it just for fun because the results are unpredictable and it really comes down to which team decided to show up that day. My brother, who is a self-proclaimed expert, had Kansas winning the tournament in his bracket. Kansas was eliminated in the Elite Eight. He also only got one team right to be in the Final Four. I, however, have never made a bracket before this year and two of the teams in the Final Four were teams I predicted, including Gonzaga, who I have winning the whole thing.
There is no way of knowing the outcome of this crazy tournament, but with it now coming to an end, I hope you survived the madness.
