I like watching basketball, but more than that, I like gambling. March Madness is my time to shine. My family does a March Madness pool every year for the men’s tournament ($10 entry and the winner takes all) and I’ve won two years in a row. Unfortunately, things are not looking so hot this year. This is a breakdown of where I went wrong.
First of all, I don’t think I necessarily went wrong. It’s not my fault my picks were wrong. It’s the teams’ fault because they all SUCKED. I went to the Clemson-McNeese game over break, and by all means Clemson (a five seed) should have smoked McNeese (a 12 seed). Clemson played the worst game I have ever seen in my three years of paying attention to basketball. Genuinely, I think I could have done better. They kept trying to score three-pointers, and they missed so many it kind of hurt to watch. At halftime, they were losing 31-13. McNeese didn’t even play exceptionally well, but every single Clemson player seemed to forget that they needed to score points to win. It was a crazy upset, and I was crazy upset.
Unfortunately, my biggest mistake is often choosing with my heart and not my head. I hail from the great state of Connecticut, and I’m often biased towards UConn. Usually this works out pretty well for me (2023/2024 BACK TO BACK CHAMPIONS), but that was not the way the basketball dribbled this year. I had UConn (an 8 seed) beating Florida (a 1 seed). Everybody else in my pool correctly assumed this wouldn’t happen, but I dared to dream. UConn was beating Florida for most of the game, but the Gators pulled ahead in the second half (side note: I like writing this article because I feel like a basketball commentator). This was the final nail in the coffin for my bracket. Half of my final four is out of the tournament. I’m going to lose the pool. My mom is making fun of me.
Usually, I pick based on vibes, and I think my biggest flop of the year was watching the basketball commentators and considering their picks. Two of them had Clemson going to the final four. This one guy said that High Point would beat Purdue (wrong), UCSD would beat Michigan (wrong), Yale would beat Texas A&M (wrong), and McNeese would beat Clemson (tragically right). Next year, I vow to not pay any attention to the people who watch basketball for a living and instead follow what I know to be true in my heart.
In my first year of doing March Madness, I did not know that the numbers next to the team names were their seed numbers. I picked completely randomly, paying no attention to seed numbers, overall season, and the previous year’s tournament, and I did terribly. However, I think that strategy would have worked out better than my current bracket. Go Duke, and fuck Clemson.
My women’s bracket is doing pretty well. Roll Huskies!