What is March Madness, you may ask? It is a special time of the year, mid-March through the first week of April, when selected male and female college basketball teams will compete in a championship tournament. Madness ensues when a team expected to advance to the next round loses by one or two points with 0.05 seconds left on the clock. These games are bananas and are exciting to watch. Last year’s tournament was canceled due to the pandemic, but now we’re back to see which men’s and women’s basketball team will be crowned NCAA champions in the end.
Besides just watching the games, people worldwide enjoy pressing their luck to see if they can determine the winners for each round out of the 68 teams. This is where creating a bracket is critical to earning bragging rights at work or with your friends. The more teams you select that actually advance to the next round, the more points you will receive as a whole. The bracket player that gets the most points is crowned the winner.
Creating a bracket is free, and there is no money involved. I like to play for fun and test my math skills and research knowledge. It’s all about a game of chance. Statistics have proven that it is nearly impossible for anyone to have a perfect bracket. Meaning, no one will be able to correctly pick all of the winning teams round by round, all the way to the end of the championship. Warren Buffet (the third richest man in the world) was willing to give away one billion dollars for a perfect bracket. Sadly, you have a one in a billion chance of winning.
The 2021 NCAA Women’s basketball bracket follows a different schedule, and you can download the women’s bracket here. View more about the NCAA Women’s basketball tournament here. The emphasis for this challenge below is placed on the men’s teams.
Now I don’t consider myself an advanced player just yet, so I prefer to remain on the novice/intermediate level. Here are some beginner tips to help you get started.
Step 1: Selection Sunday is March 14
This date is critical. The NCAA selection committee will finalize and rank the 68 teams that will compete and enable you to begin filling out your bracket. You can watch the reveal live on CBS beginning at 6 p.m. ET, TBS, TNT, on NCAA.com, or the March Madness Live app. Once the final teams have been chosen, you can begin step 2.
Step 2: Print the bracket
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Visit the site NCAA Bracket website to print out a hard copy so you can review the individual rounds. Some prefer to pick teams that will advance digitally on the computer, but I like looking at a hard copy first. Writing my selections on paper makes me feel better.
The First Four begins March 18 and the First Round begins March 19-20. Therefore you need to complete your bracket ASAP before the First Four competition begins. Once your selections are made, you can compete with a March Madness group at work, with celebrities, or against family and friends. Yahoo.com or ESPN.com are great places to start filling out your brackets online. You can also win some fun prizes if your picks are really good.
Step 3: Research
This is another critical step. If you’re not much of a college basketball observer in the sense where you keep up with teams throughout the year, you need to do some research. Then again, if you’re not a competitive person this step is not for you. Some people like to choose teams for their bracket based on color or mascot. Visit the Simply Play Ideas website for a 2019 kid friendly mascot bracket for reference and/or if you want to encourage a younger audience to join in on the fun. This process is cool and fun but not my total method of choice.
It is wise to break down the teams by their distinctive regions. I like to look at one region at a time and examine the team’s statistics for the first and second rounds. Then I allow myself to review the whole bracket to match-up my decisions.
Overall, the main goal is to have fun and enjoy the experience. As a female, I take pride in playing against males that feel I have no clue of what I’m doing. It’s comical to see their faces in utter shock when my score surpasses their ego.
Each year my first and second round picks have been stellar. Once I enter the third round my bracket slowly begins to fade into a nonexistent dimension.
Social media is also hilarious due to memes and videos that are created when a bracket is dismantled. If you have never played before go ahead and give it a try. You just might enjoy it.
