It’s that time of year again. That time of year where the college basketball nerds reign, and the casual sports fans pretend like they’ve been following it all season.
Why pretend? Why the façade? As you guys already know, I’m not the biggest fan of college athletics. But man, when the bucking bull of March Madness stomps its way through, you have two options. You can run like my scaredy cat editor, or you can grab onto the bull and hang on for dear life. Who knows, you just might be the last one clinging.
Don’t hide from your NCAA ignorance. Embrace it. Stick to a set of completely arbitrary rules when filling out this lottery ticket we call a bracket and never look back.
Here are my top five suggestions for filling out a bracket for the sports fan who knows little to nothing about college basketball:
1. Time to Put Your Shitty Sports Betting to Good Use
Turn a negative into a positive. Remember all those times throughout the last few months when you got burned by awful college basketball bets? You needed your gambling fix, but there was nothing else on. You took a team that you knew had a great history, and they’re playing some no-name mid-major. They’ll cover the spread, right? WRONG. And now you’re doubling down on Romanian soccer and Brazilian tennis tournaments.
I digress. There’s no team that burned me more often this season than the Villanova Wildcats. Sure, they’ve won two of the last three championships, but this team sucks. They’re a 6-seed, and don’t tell me they’re underseeded. If anything, they’re overseeded – they go out in the first round to Saint Mary’s.
2. If You Hate the School, Hate the Team
All the schools that all the douchebags from your high school ended up at? Those are no-gos. Duke? UNC? Virginia? They don’t stand a chance of winning. You like chalk? Take the Zags.
Yale thinks they have a chance at upsetting LSU in the first round? Yeah, Tigers coach Will Wade is currently being held in Guantanamo Bay for recruiting violations. But I don’t care if Nancy Pelosi is coaching LSU – Yale doesn’t stand a chance. Maybe if this were the Debate Team bracket.
Liberty? Too bigoted. Bradley? They oppose the first amendment, $#@! them. Colgate? They waitlisted me.
3. Watch out for the State of Iowa
This is a rule that I got from college football, and I’ve found that it also applies to basketball. Don’t sleep on the state of Iowa. Once a year in college football, an unranked Iowa Hawkeye will come in and absolute slap a Big 10 power in the face. Every year. Without fail.
And every year, an Iowa State Cyclones basketball team will somehow have a string of quality teams shitting the bed against them, teams they had no business beating. Just look at the three-day stretch that they went on in the Big 12 tournament last week. In three consecutive days, they beat: Baylor, Kansas State and Kansas. All three of those teams are seeded higher than the Cyclones in the tournament.
Look, I’m not saying that we’re going to have an Iowa-Iowa State match-up in the Final Four. But I have Iowa upsetting Cincy in the first round, and I have Iowa State dancing all the way to the Elite Eight after knocking off Kentucky.
4. One Player Doesn’t Get It Done
I know you think you’re a genius for picking Murray State over Marquette in the first round. I know you think you’re a genius because you know that, basically 80% of the time, a No. 12 seed knocks off a No. 5 seed. You’re not a genius.
First of all, everyone’s picking this upset – you think you’re a cute little snowflake? Obviously, Murray State is a hot pick because of Ja Morant – he’s a stud and a likely top-three pick in the coming NBA draft. But they’re a 12-seed for a reason, and Marquette is the real deal. Don’t take the bait here.
Me personally? I actually didn’t take a 12 over a 5 this year. But if I did, my choice might surprise you. New Mexico State over Auburn. I love Bruce Pearl, but he’s not a great big game coach and his team was at its hottest too early in the season. And don’t fall for Oregon over Wisconsin either. The Badgers slow things down as well as anyone in the country.
5. You Always Have to Pick One Random Team to Make a Run
And completely arbitrarily.
Sometimes this happens by accident. For example, you might be feeling two upsets that happen to be right next to each other on the bracket. Next thing you know, you have an 11-seed and a 14-seed squaring off in the round of 32. That means that one of those teams is going through to your Sweet Sixteen.
Or maybe, in one of the four college basketball games you’ve watched part of this season, you noticed a small-school team playing well and it stuck with you. Next thing you know, you have Old Dominion pegged as the next George Mason (please don’t do that).
Me? As I said above, I have Iowa State in my Elite Eight, and I have Saint Mary’s boogying all the way to the Sweet Sixteen. Why not?
