March Madness is one of the biggest college sporting events in the United States. It is a massive bracket tournament, where seeds 1-16 play each other. There are 4 regions each having a 1 seed all the way to a 16 seed. This leads to many different upsets of teams that in general should win and beat the lower seeded teams. This makes for some really good games, and history being made every single year.
Michael (Noob)
Pre-Games:
I made a few brackets and each one I did a different theme for it. One of mine I just did the teams I recognised, another I just picked the higher seed, I flipped a coin with heads being the higher seed and tails the lower, then another coin flip but with always picking the top 4 seeds to win until it was just the top seeds so I did coin flips to decide my winner. My main bracket I entered into Novak and my friends group is the teams I recognised which is the “important one.”
1st Day:
My smart 50/50 bracket was almost perfect on the first day, the only team that messed it all up was OSU vs. TCU. It was at 99.9%. I was really surprised that just doing coin flips for the lower seeds ended up pretty well. My main Bracket was at around 87% which wasn’t too bad but I thought that one would do better.
March 23rd:
Currently, my smart 50/50 is at 90% with 490 points and a max of 1450. My Main Bracket is at 97%, 510 points, and a max of 1710. You can ask anyone who has done March Madness for a while and they’ll tell you that beginners or people who don’t watch basketball make the best brackets. I remember Novak telling us that someone in his family chose their bracket based on how hot the team’s coaches are and they won. In the two groups I’m in I’m third out of 113 (Novak), and 1st out of 8 people (friends). I haven’t really been watching the games but now I might watch them since I’ve been doing well.
Landen (Average)
Pre-Games:
I chose my bracket based on records, and some assistance from more experienced people. Some of the seeding played a part in my decisions as well.
1st Day: On the first day, my bracket was ruined because I chose Ohio State over TCU and TCU won. I had a few other wrong picks but overall it wasn’t too bad. I hoped for more correct predictions, but it wasn’t in the cards this time.
March 23rd: As of right now, my bracket has been completely demolished due to many unseen upsets. But that is what March Madness is all about. Everyone has an equal chance of winning the tournament.
Ethan (Pro)
Pre game: Recently for March Madness, I made multiple brackets, picking them for different purposes. These have led to multiple different outcomes. Some good, and others bad. I picked some off of randomness, just picking off namesake or the teams that I thought would win. This led to some very different results for my brackets. I liked what this led to, and how my brackets now look.
1st Day: Most of my brackets were screwed by the TCU vs Ohio state, as well as Nebraska vs Troy. This just shows how quickly your bracket can be messed up, and it was good to see some really overall fun games. March Madness is all about some amazing basketball, and I think that as long as the games are good I don’t care about my bracket. March is one of the best times in sports, and March Madness is the cherry on top.
March 23rd: My best bracket is 95%, and it is going well so far. I think that this bracket could be really good, but it truly depends on Duke. The ones that I made on my personal picks have done really poorly, which makes me think that there is no true way to have a good bracket no matter how much basketball you watch. This is March. Expect the unexpected.
Charlie (Hacker)
Pre-games:
I’m a big men’s basketball fan and I spend most of my time watching sports. I picked the games based on my knowledge, feelings, and overall “that feeling of march”. I picked a few upsets here and there, for example: Hofstra, High Point, Santa Clara, and Miami (OH).
1st day:
I had a great first day, all of my sweet sixteen teams were still alive even after going 11/16. My Spartans dominated over NDSU and looked ready for a run.
March 23rd:
insert soldier meme: We did NOT have a good weekend. Florida lost to Iowa in a beautiful game, Gonzaga got upset by Texas, Virginia lost to Tennessee, Hofstra didn’t win a game, we had a tough weekend. However, as a fan of the game, I loved sitting on my couch watching all of these games. Most of them came down to the wire and had exciting finishes.
As you can see, any can make a March madness bracket. You can pick by the team colors, how hot the coaches are, a coin flip, or anything and still beat people with more experience than you. Sure there’s stats but it’s March, and anything can happen. “EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.”
