March remains notable for many things. Spring has finally arrived and spring break saves the day to help students from doing unspeakable things, like going to school. But one event in particular manages to envelop and ruin my life for 21 days. This annual spectacle of pageantry and tall people is known as the NCAA Basketball Tournament, or its more effective name: March Madness. Starting March 15 and concluding on April 4, 68 (eventually 64) basketball teams from across the nation will duke (no pun intended) it out to prove the best in America.
A popular activity during the tournament involves filling out brackets to predict the exact teams that will win their matchups, and eventually win the national championship. It has been 31 years since the current playoff format was introduced. No one has ever correctly predicted the entire tournament. Warren Buffett, the third richest man in the world, will offer a $100,000 prize and $1 million a year for life to anyone in his company who can correctly guess this year’s bracket. In 2014, he offered a billion dollars to anyone who got it. No one did.
Serious stuff y’all. The 2015-2016 season has been the most college basketball I’ve ever watched (about five games this year), so I have a very complex understanding of how this March will unfold. I will win the bracket this year, but if you want to get close, I am giving to you the easiest way to pick your winning teams in order of least to most effective.
FLIP A COIN
Sometime in the 1800s, Asa Lovejoy, a Boston lawyer, and Francis Pettygrove, from Portland, Maine, were having trouble naming their new piece of land they had put together in the Northwest. Their way of deciding the name? Flipping a coin. Portland, Oregon’s entire identity as the largest city in the state hinged on a coin flip. So flip a coin roughly 63 times to decide your bracket!
ODDS: 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (about 9.2 quintillion)
MASCOTS
The diversity between teams remains my favorite part of college sports, especially in names and mascots. In the AP Top 25 alone, we have Jayhawks, Warriors, Cavaliers, Boilermakers, Terrapins, Tar Heels, Hoosiers, Blue Devils and Musketeers. The ones I’ve named only represent nine out of 25 teams, which only represents 25 out of 68 teams going to the tournament. The closer to the bottom of that 68 number, the weirder the names become. Ready to see the IPFW Mastodons and the Valparaiso Crusaders?
ODDS: Varies
#GRANTGUARANTEE SECRET WEAPON: FUTURE
Many people know that March Madness also refers to NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, but my years of expertise have allowed me to find unconventional ways of picking this year’s winner. The answer lies in a 2015 song from Atlanta superstar, Future. March Madness was meant to be a mostly harmless song about drugs and violence. Ya know, the usual Future. But when we dig deeper, we find out the hidden basketball line that will win us the tournament. When Future says “Switching lanes in a Grand Rapid,” he’s not talking about the Aston Martin Rapide S, Future actually, secretly raps about Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids only an hour away from Lansing, the home of the Michigan State Spartans, currently ranked #2 in the nation.
The Michigan State Spartans will win the tournament.
ODDS: Somehow the least crazy thing I’ve said
THE TOP SEEDS
If you do this, I will secretly resent you. The easiest way to pick your bracket, the top seeds makes the tournament as predictable as possible.
ODDS: Ehhhhh?????
DON’T PICK OKLAHOMA TO WIN
Oklahoma, the (second) worst place in the United States, will never be a safe pick in the tournament. Can you name another Oklahoma basketball alumni other than Blake Griffin? Of course you can’t. They have zero national championships, and this year won’t be their first. In all seriousness, Buddy Hield continues to prove his status as the best player in the country. Despite this, recent losses to Texas Tech and Kansas show that the young team may not be able to glide their way to the championship. Also they recently lost a real heartbreaker to Texas. Who does that?
ODDS: 100%
If you use one of these methods to pick your teams, I can guarantee you’ll put up a great bracket*.
*I cannot guarantee your bracket will be credible. At all, actually.
