Last year, I tried my best to give you the best ways to pick your March Madness bracket. I failed miserably, so let’s go back and see how my prediction held up.
My main prediction was “The Michigan State Spartans will win the tournament.” Let’s see what SB Nation said about how they did in the tourney.
Oops.
My other big prediction was “DON’T PICK OKLAHOMA TO WIN.” The prediction almost was ruined, but luckily Villanova, who would go on to win the national championship, took care of OU in the final four.
I ended up basically going 1-1 in my predictions. Let’s do a few more this year, and we’ll see how they turn out in 2018.
PICKING THE COLOR BLUE
It’s gonna sound stupid, but nine of the last ten teams who have won the national championship have had their primary color as blue (with the one exception being the 2013 Louisville Cardinals). It leaves you with plenty of options, but your best bets will be North Carolina, Villanova, Duke, Gonzaga and Kansas. They’re basically the best teams in the country, so this is a safe pick.
ODDS: (probably) 100% WINNER: KANSAS
I talked about mascots last season, but there’s so many ways we can attack this, all with differing results:
PICKING THE BIGGEST MASCOT
In terms of weight, this category had two schools in a tie: The Iowa State Cyclones and the Miami Hurricanes which are basically the same thing. According to NPR, a hurricane weighs approximately 108 BILLION lbs, making them the heaviest mascot.
ODDS: PRETTY SMALL (ironically) WINNER: IOWA STATE/MIAMI
PICKING THE SMALLEST MASCOT
This category was a lot harder to find than the bigger mascots. The bracket is filled with a ton of bird mascots which made for a lot of googling.
According to my calculations, the smallest mascot should be a tie between the Illinois State Redbirds and the Louisville Cardinals (1.5 oz) with the runner-up probably being the Syracuse Orange (a small orange is probably like 2.0 oz). Picking Illinois State may not get you too far, but Louisville and Syracuse are actually good options.
ODDS: NOT AS BAD AS THE BIGGEST MASCOT CATEGORY WINNER: LOUISVILLE
PICKING THE WEIRDEST MASCOT
The UC Irvine Anteaters. Next question.
DON’T PICK GONZAGA TO WIN
Last year I warned you not to pick OU. This year, Gonzaga is the trap team. We’re in the same situation that we were in in 2013-14. Remember when Wichita State went undefeated in the regular season then lost in the second round of the tournament? Forget their bruising defense and their high-powered offense; they look great by comparison to a god awful West Coast Conference where the hardest teams to beat are BYU and Saint Mary’s. I don’t think they’re going to be terrible, but they won’t make it very far.
SCHOOL ALUMNI
This was a tough choice, but I think one school takes the cake.
ODDS: 1,000,000% WINNER: West Virginia
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.
