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Welcome, casual March Madness bandwagoners! Don’t know where Gonzaga is? Couldn’t name a single player on Duke’s basketball team? Only vaguely familiar with that LSU coach who wears a lot of feathers and yells all the time (that’s Kim Mulkey!)?Maybe you’re just a big fan of one team, and you’re not really sure how the rest of the field should play out. Maybe you love March Madness for the spectacle, the camaraderie and the monoculture, but you really don’t want to do homework.
Well, huddle up, team, because we got you. Regardless of why you’re here, you’ve come to the right place. You found your tribe. Here we’re not doing in-depth roster analysis, combing through stats, or pinning up red-string maps on our walls. Because we’re not sickos; we’re just here for the fun.
And — newsflash — making your bracket can be fun!
We rounded up a bunch of stories from The Athletic staff to get their favorite examples of wild, random, everything-but-basketball-knowledge brackets, and we’ll share some of their real-world anecdotes about using the following … ahem … “strategies.”
We have plenty of advice for sports fans who want to build a “real” bracket with “real” strategies (no, really): beginner’s bracket guide, 7 tips for filling out your bracket, best bracket names, and even a predictions game! But below are 13 ways to build a bracket that don’t require any prior knowledge of the teams, players or odds. (And yes, we considered that 13 is an unlucky number to everyone but Taylor Swift, but March Madness is all about making your own luck, folks!)
We’d love to hear your silliest, most random bracket ideas or stories in the comments, too!
The Nerd Bracket
Who you are: Maybe you don’t know basketball, but you respect the numbers — they’ve never lied to you. You love strategy and an afternoon spent hyperfocusing on spreadsheets. You’re new to the teams in the field, but not new to making decisions based on hard, cold facts. You’re a nerd (complimentary)!
How to build your bracket: Steal Austin Mock’s. Mock is The Athletic’s March Madness projectionist, and he uses an advanced algorithm to run 1 million simulations of the tournament and meticulously predict the most likely outcomes.
The Best Mascot Bracket
Who you are: You’re drawn to exciting people and interesting places, even if you sometimes get yourself into a pickle. You were having fun in high school, and you go on vibes over showing your work. And where is all the fun? Mascots, duh.
How to build your bracket: From Ashley Young: “I knew someone who knew nothing about college basketball and based her bracket on the coolest-sounding mascots. She won that year.”
From Sarah Doran: “I also tend to do mascot-based brackets. I’ve done ‘weirdest mascot,’ ‘which mascot wins in a fight,’ ‘which mascot loses in a fight,’ ‘which mascot I think is coolest’ — that one was the year Saint Peter made a deep run, and I made a lot of my friends who care about basketball very mad at me.”
The Mascot Fight Bracket (Fantasy Rules edition)
Who you are: You love high fantasy and world-building. You own the extended versions of “The Lord of the Rings” on DVD, and you have played Dungeons and Dragons at least once in your life.
How to build your bracket: This is a twist on the “best mascot” bracket. From Gabby Thibault: “My old roommate introduced me to the ‘which mascot would win in a fight’ bracket approach, and I’ve been hooked for the last six-plus years on it. We use the following criteria:
Weaponry: mascot with weapon > mascot without weapon
Means of defense: mascots with helmet, armor, shield > mascots without
Mindset: Does he have a game face? Does he have that DAWG in him? Gotta get your head in the game!
Liabilities: mascots with capes, long beards, eyes on the sides < mascots without
Mobility: mascots with huge fake feet/hands/off-balanced weight (i.e., they have a huge head and tiny body) < more nimble mascots”
The Celebrity Bracket
Who you are: Celebrity gossip is your sport of choice. You are a pop culture enthusiast, a film buff or a “Watch Watch Happens Live” diehard. You live for the Jumbotron, and you will watch the games if a superstar player is making an appearance.
How to build your bracket: From Jake La Placa: “I have a friend who likes to go off of which famous (non-athlete) alumnus/alumna they like most from each school.” You could also keep it to celebrities who are fans of a specific school, even if they didn’t go there or graduate.
This year, that could include:
Kansas — Paul Rudd
Iowa — Jason Sudeikis
Duke — Ken Jeong, Adam Silver
Texas — Matthew McConaughey, Glen Powell
Michigan — Tom Brady, James Earl Jones, Madonna
Houston — Dennis Quaid, Lizzo, Hakeem Olajuwon
UConn — Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart
UCLA — James Franco, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Steve Martin, Jackie Robinson
LSU — Shaquille O’Neal, Livvy Dunne, Joe Burrow
I’ll let you do the rest of the research.
The Emotional Hedge Bracket
Who you are: You are a passionate person. You give it your all every time. You love with your whole heart, whether people, pets, cities or sports teams. And maybe sometimes that gets you hurt. Don’t worry. Here’s how to protect yourself.
How to build your bracket: Pick the teams you hate. Sorry, but just do it. UNC fan? Pick Duke, you’ll probably win. (Sorry.) LSU fan on the women’s side? Pick against the Tigers. This way, no matter what happens, you get a win: your heart or your pocketbook.
The Cat Bracket
Who you are: A cat lover, duh!
How to build your bracket: Re-upping from last year, this one is from one of our college editors, Eric Single: “Pet owners love to project human qualities onto their furry friends, so why not let them fill out a bracket? A few years ago, my wife and I found ourselves without an office pool and stepped into the mind of our tuxedo cat, Ty, to create a third submission against which to measure our picks. We’ve been filling a bracket out for him ever since, and I’m ashamed to admit how many times my entry has lost to his.
“The rules of the Cat Bracket are simple: Cats always win, and dogs always lose. In matchups featuring mascots that are neither cats nor dogs, the side my cat would most likely prefer gets the nod. (Birds, pigs, fish and other less tasty non-dog animals are generally favored; humans, weapons, vehicles and severe weather events, less so.) When two cats clash, it’s dealer’s choice.”
The Finger-Pointing Bracket
Who you are: You like to be right, but you don’t have the time or energy to learn a whole new field just to win at March Madness. The solution? Shortcut: Use an expert’s advice to build a solid bracket — and then blame them if it all goes up in smoke!
How to build your bracket: From Rustin Dodd: “I just pick whoever is ranked higher in KenPom, which means you don’t pick THAT many upsets. But there are still always some, based on his numbers. It also outsources the pain of your bracket-busting. You can just blame Ken Pomeroy.”
The Betting on Myself Bracket
Who you are: You are fun and breezy and driven by your gut. You like to make decisions instinctively and then let the chips fall where they may, because you just don’t have time or patience for the low and slow route. Maybe you’re a little woo-woo, too. You drive your friends crazy because you often win using this by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach.
How to build your bracket: From Scott Dochterman: “My wife, who knows very little about men’s basketball, won our office pool in 2002, much to the chagrin of our co-workers. Her first name is Meredith, and she picked Maryland to win it all, ‘because my friends all call me Mary.'”
The K.I.S.S. Bracket (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Who you are: You don’t need an algorithm to tell you that the higher seeds win more often than the lower seeds. You love to say, “That’s just math.” You’re here to maximize your fun and your chances of winning. Don’t overthink it; that’s just math.
How to build your bracket: From Stewart Mandel: “My 9-year-old daughter almost won The Athletic college staff’s pool last year, and I think the key is that she mostly just picks the higher seeds. Don’t overthink it.”
The Coin-Flip Bracket
Who you are: You let fate choose for you!
How to build your bracket: From Michael Beller: “When I was a senior in high school, a friend of mine and I would print out Joe Lunardi’s bracketology every day before study hall and fill it out via weighted coin flip. So, for example, a 16 would need to get 10 heads in a row to beat a 1, but an 8/9 game was just one flip. Did it literally every day for like two months leading up to the start of the tourney.”
The Friends and Family Bracket
Who you are: A people person! You are really close with your family and friends. You build your calendar around the loved ones in your life, and you run every decision by the group chat.
How to build your bracket: Have a cousin who went to Auburn? Your neighbor went to Duke? Your Gran records every LSU women’s basketball game all season and then asks you to find where the recordings are on her smart TV whenever you visit (oh wait, that one’s me)? Any connection to a school counts for something, and stronger connections count for more. Let’s get to ranking the people in your life.
The Low-Risk Bracket
Who you are: It’s not that you NEVER take risks, but you want to be prepared. You’re a Boy Scout. You have never run out of clean underwear on vacation, and you have extensive experience with meal prepping. You prefer an abundance of caution. Your feet are on solid ground, and you always bet $1 on “The Price Is Right.”
How to build your bracket: From Rustin Dodd again: “If I’m in a pool that allows you to buy in for multiple brackets, I like to do a bracket where you do nothing but chalk picks, all the way through. Kind of like a ‘control group’ bracket. 1. It’s kind of like bidding $1 on ‘Price Is Right.’ If the tournament doesn’t have that many upsets, you might actually do quite well. 2. If you do a second bracket, it’s fun to see if you can do better than the ‘control group.'” Honestly, this one is essentially the same as the “K.I.S.S.” Bracket above. It’s just spiritually different.
The Pet Choice Bracket
Who you are: An animal lover! You call your pet your baby and she probably has her own Instagram account. Why not let the center of your universe make your picks for you??
How to build your bracket: From Nathan Fenno: “My wife and I devised a system several years ago to allow our dog to pick a bracket (which he did until passing last year). Treat in each hand. If he jabbed the right hand first, the top team was picked and vice versa. We’d go through the entire bracket that way. The results were … erratic.”
Happy bracket-building! Share your strategies with us below — fun ones only!
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Men's College Basketball, Women's College Basketball, Culture, Sports Betting
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