Busted!

If you have dropped a four-letter word in the last few days it was most likely because your NCAA March Madness bracket is busted! For context, I’ve said a lot of four-letter words as my bracket is currently holding down the basement in every pool I am in.

Madness

Originally, I planned to post more of a bracketology blog before Thursday’s tipoff. However, the madness already started when I made the mistake of calling my twin brother to simply ask him “Texas Tech or NC State”. I had every intention of hearing one team or the other and hanging up to fill out my bracket and start typing a bunch of nerdy stats for you. Fast forward to two hours later of being tech support and a bookie for my parents who couldn’t figure out how to log into ESPN and CBS from the iMAC and fill out their brackets with their own accounts. I also got a lecture in the tone of ‘you’re an idiot’ from my Dad for even asking “Texas Tech or NC State”. “What do you mean you don’t know who to take, NC State is ouf of gas. This is unbelievable, Texas Tech is going to win”. And my Dad continued to make sarcastic jabs the entire phone call.

Growing up children are taught to listen to their parents, I’m not sure why I started to follow that rule now. It was a horrible decision. I took Texas Tech and NC State won by 13 points. I wish I could say that was the only bad decision I made in round one, but that was only the beginning of my bracket busting madness.

Bracketology

This year there is no team that is dominate in the men’s bracket. Every team is beatable. Over 22 million brackets were filled out on ESPN. I heard on the news that your chances of winning the lottery twice are higher than having a perfect NCAA men’s bracket. Check out these stats from ESPN for which games busted brackets and ignited four-letter words.

Upsets Matter!

The main March Madness bracket pool I play in is an upset league. (Beka, this means if a 16-seed (lowest seed) beats a 1-seed (the highest seed) you get 16 points. If the 1-seed wins, you only get one point.) The 11-seed has made it to the final four five times. UCLA (2021), Loyola-Chicago (2018), VCU (2011), George Mason (2006) and LSU (1986) none of them won the championship. But, the 11-seed can make some noise and bust brackets.

Out of the four 11-seeds in this year’s tournament (NC State, Oregon, Duquesne, and New Mexico) three of the four won in the first round. Of course, I picked New Mexico, the only 11-seed to lose in the first round. I will continue to blame NC State on my Dad. A 12-seed upsets a 5-seed almost every year. This year two 12-seed teams won (Saint Mary’s and JMU). The only upset still standing in my bracket is JMU and I took them to the elite eight. I could continue to go into my thought process for picking so many upsets, but the summary is like my love life; I’m not crazy, I’m just not lucky.

SEC

The SEC looked really bad round one! Not at bad as UVA, but still the SEC was a disappointment as a conference. Eight teams from the SEC made it to the field of 68 teams. Five teams lost the first round and all five teams were the lower seeds. That’s five upsets that I didn’t pick. BLEEEP!
3-seed Kentucky lost to 14-seed Oakland
4-seed Auburn lost to 13-seed Yale
6-seed South Carolina lost to 11-seed Oregon
7-seed Florida lost to 10-seed Colorado
8-seed Mississippi State lost to 9-seed Michigan State

The bigger question in the SEC is what will Kentucky do with Coach John Calipari? In the last three tournaments that they were part of the 68 teams (did not make 2021 tournament), Kentucky has lost in the first round twice and in the second round once. This means Calipari has only one win in the last five years of the NCAA Tournament! Kentucky has been a prep school for future NBA players. A blue blood program with deep pockets and their pick at the best players in the country to now a program that is simply singing the blues. If Kentucky parts ways with Calipari, his buyout is over $33 million dollars.

Sweet 16

We head into the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 next weekend and this is where it starts to get real fun and the four-letter words will get louder. Gonzaga has nine consecutive Sweet 16 appearances! NINE IN A ROW! The small program is built for creating madness in the NCAA Tournament. They could arguably be one of the best programs to never win the NCAA Championship. (They lost the title games in 2017 and 2021.)

The Sweet 16 games start Thursday and Friday. Tennessee will play Creighton on Friday- Let’s Go Vols!

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