NCAA predictions:

Every year I do my NCAA predictions, and I do my NCAA predictions by coin flip.

This is because of a couple reasons.

1) I know nothing about college basketball.
2) I find it a lot more fun to cheer for the underdogs in the tournament, and if I were to fill out my bracket legitimately, that would compromise my ability to always cheer for the underdog.
3) I'd like to one day beat someone's legitimate bracket with my coin-flipped one.

So far it has failed every single time. But let's look into my bracket to see highlights:

EAST: Number one Ohio St. goes down to the 16 seed behemoth UTSA/AL ST. ESPN's bracket filler-outer doesn't allow me to choose between the two, so I consider them as one. I think it's Texas-San Antonio and Alabama St. Don't care enough to look it up. They--plus 2 UNC, 13 Princeton, and 14 Indiana St make the Sweet Sixteen, with 16 UTSA/ALST and 2 UNC advancing. Unfortunately UNC wins, which is unfortunate... since UTSA/ALST was my best performing 16 seed this year. The more 16 seeds going to the Final Four, the better.

WEST: Another 16 seed, Hampton, beats 1 Duke and makes it all the way to the Sweet Sixteen until it falls to 13 seed Oakland, who ends up beating 7 Temple in the Elite Eight.

SOUTHWEST: Kansas is the only 1 seed to make it past the first round, but they end up falling in the Sweet Sixteen to 12 Richmond. Other Sweet Sixteen participants--11 USC/VCU (which is Southern Cal and Virginia Commonwealth respectively) and 10 Florida St. Going to the Final Four is USC/VCU, who beat out Richmond. It's pretty great too... because ESPN's bracket filler-outer shows the logos of the teams you have in the Final Four, but since USC/VCU is two teams, they just leave it blank.

SOUTHEAST: 1 Pittsburgh goes down to 16 UNCA/ARLR (which stands for... whatever), but the big story is that 10 Michigan St wins the region, making this the 30th straight Final Four they make. They beat 9 Old Dominion to get there.

FINAL FOUR:
2 UNC over 13 Oakland
11 USC/VCU over 10 Michigan St

CHAMPIONSHIP:
11 USC/VCU over 2 UNC

So there you have it. Two teams will win it this year. Or whichever one wins the play-in game. Whose stupid idea was it to add extra teams into the tournament anyway?






BONUS:

Sara filled out her own bracket. I'm gonna write about hers too. Hers is more interesting, since she chooses it based on how cool the name sounds. Villanova usually wins this.

WEST: ... except this year, when INEXPLICABLY Syracuse beats Villanova. Syracuse also beat Xavier, another perennial Final Four contender. These were major upsets if you have followed Sara's brackets over the years (which no one has... except me.)

EAST: This region's final was Tennessee vs. UConn. After much deliberation, trying to decide between the lyrical Tennessee which flows with double letters after double letters... or the bluntness of UConn. She went with UConn.

SOUTHWEST: Kind of a weak field. Major highlights include her being weirded out by how I pronounce Akron (ack-ron) vs. how she's pronounced it (a-cron). I think I'm right. She went with VCU (or Virginia Commonwealth) over Vanderbilt in the final... which she considered an upset since she apparently rarely goes with acronyms. But I guess the overall strength of the name within that acronym was good enough here. Also, this is the only Final Four selection that matches up with mine... but I let her choose between VCU and USC since it confused her when I tried listing them together. Another reason why this 68-team thing is stupid.

SOUTHEAST: Surprise of the tournament: Wofford wins the region. Which was really surprising considering it was up against Gonzaga... another perennial contender for the Final Four. Her reasoning... unknown, although it is an awesome name. In the regional final, it beat ODU (aka Old Dominion... or Dominium/Condominium as she recalled it), which was another acronymed team doing pretty well.

FINAL FOUR:
UConn over Syracuse.
Wofford over VCU

CHAMPIONSHIP:
Wofford over UConn

Which is a pretty good selection, if you ask me. If only for the fact that it'll probably be the only time it'll ever have a chance at winning anything.


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If somehow your bracket is worse than ours, just know that this post is designed to make you feel really really bad.