Everyone is talking about busted brackets and upset losses. But here’s a friendly reminder that nobody cares about your March Madness bracket because all of our brackets are busted.
I don’t care about your bracket. And neither do most people.
When March rolls around, I’m enthusiastic about the amount of great basketball that’s about to take over my TV. It’s the part of the season that I’ve waited for since November — when Kansas starts playing exhibition games. Sure, I have the luxury of following a basketball program that’s known for making appearances in March, but I’d still watch regardless. The NCAA tournament is one of the craziest, most exciting sporting events to watch. The brackets are a different story.
I’m not bitter that my bracket picks are always terrible, because quite frankly, they always are. I’m just tired of hearing after three, or maybe four, tournament games that your bracket is “busted.” Oh, did you think yours was perfect?
Allow me to feed you some statistics…
On the first day of the tournament, 99.999 percent of brackets on Yahoo! were tarnished. And only .01 percent on ESPN remained perfect. In 2015 and 2014, .002 and .02 percent, remained perfect after the first day. The last time someone picked all 32 first round games correct? 2010.
And don’t get me started on Michigan State. No perfect brackets remained on CBS, Yahoo!, and Bleacher Report after MSU’s loss. Obviously, quite a few people thought that a storied program, and two-seeded team, would make a deep tournament run. Wrong.
But that’s the fun part about March Madness. Teams you wouldn’t expect to advance, do exactly that. Cinderella programs rip out your heart when they beat your team — Northern Iowa, VCU, shall I go on? It’s what brings me back each March. Sure, every year, I hope it’s Kansas’ year to win it all. Unfortunately, Kansas can’t win the tourney every year. So, when they’re inevitably knocked out — normally sooner than I’d hoped — I pick those Cinderella teams. The underdogs. The 13-seeds.
When my bracket is “busted,” I have the liberty to cheer for who I truly want to win. I often find myself picking top-seeded teams because I feel forced to. I think they’re supposed to win, even though I hope they lose. (Duke, Kentucky, etc)
Basically, I’m admitting that I root against my bracket.
I’m encouraging this. Especially at this point in the tournament.
It’s the Sweet 16, now, folks. I dare you to crumple up your bracket, to just stop caring about how you’re doing in the bracket challenge with your coworkers, or your family. (I know I’m at the bottom of mine.) If you’re not a die-hard fan of a team currently in the tournament, pick someone to root for.
And if you’ve got a dog in the fight, what an even better incentive to stop caring about your dumb bracket.
All I care about at this point is Kansas beating Maryland, so the Jayhawks can move on to Elite 8, and so on. My suggestion is you do something similar. Your bracket isn’t perfect. I know this for a fact. Stop whining about it — it most likely will never be.
Disclaimer: I do fill out a bracket, but I could care less about how well it does.