Let me backtrack before the headline scares you away: My bracket sucks too. And when the sports editors publish our bracket in the Weekender tomorrow, it will undoubtedly suck as well. Such is the madness of March, as your odds of picking all 63 (or 67 if you pick the First Four games) games correctly are practically non-existent, and you aren't likely to come very close either.
As far as brackets go, I've had a decent amount of success in recent years, including placing in the 88th percentile in ESPN's Tournament Challenge last season. However, my bracket wasn't necessarily good, as I earned 1,110 of 1,920 possible points, good for just under 58 percent. Fifty-eight percent is not particularly impressive by any stretch of the imagination, and 88 percent of entries were worse — meaning at least 88 percent of entries would've received an F if they were graded on their brackets.
Part of that general failure is due to the way the tournament is set up. When you pick a team to reach the Final Four and they get upset in the first weekend, you no longer have any chance of correctly picking the games further down the line that you expected them to win. Another part is the unpredictability of college basketball. Because a team is eliminated with just one loss, the nation's best teams can have a bad night for any number of reasons and find themselves watching the remainder of the Big Dance from home. And the third component of a poor bracket is the simple fact that 64 teams will take the court in the first round of the tournament. You haven't watched all of them play. I haven't watched all of them play. We really don't know how good these teams are or how well they match up with their opponents just from glancing at their resume on paper.
Each year, the unthinkable happens during March Madness, and there are always upsets that no amount of research could give you the courage to choose. For example in 2012, 15 seeds Norfolk State and Lehigh upset 2 seeds Missouri and Duke respectively, becoming the fifth and sixth teams to accomplish the feat. The following year, 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast knocked off second-seeded Georgetown before topping San Diego State in the Round of 32, becoming the first 15 seed, and still the only, to reach the Sweet 16. The only certainty in the tournament is that madness will ensue, and with regular season as crazy as this one, fans are expecting plenty of upsets in the tournament.
This postseason, prepare yourself for the unthinkable. The top teams are weaker than any year in recent memory, meaning we could bear witness to some historically monumental upsets. Plenty of auto-bids from small conferences, such as Hawai'i, Gonzaga and Iona have the ability to win at least one game. You might be able to predict a few of these upsets, but I can almost guarantee that a team you completely write off will pull a mind-blowing upset over a top team. It happens every year, and we just have to accept it.
This article isn't meant to discourage you from making a bracket. Filling out a bracket is one of the greatest things about a tournament, because it is always a good feeling to see your picks come true. However, when your picks are wrong, understand that it is simply the nature of the game. Odds are, you won't win the pools that you have entered, and I can say with near certainty that you won't become the first person to fill out a perfect bracket. Instead of getting bogged down with insisting that every single game goes your way, simply enjoy the phenomenal display of basketball on your television. These are some of the best weekends in sports for an entire year; don't let your bad bracket get you down.