Try Not to Lose Your Shirt in Your NCAA Office Pool This Year
It is the holiest of days in some parts of the country: NCAA Selection Sunday. And here, for your viewing pleasure, is the official bracket for the 2013 NCAA Tournament, plus some amateur analysis that will help ruin your bracket by the end of the first round.
.It is the holiest of days in some parts of the country: NCAA Selection Sunday. And here, for your viewing pleasure, is the official bracket for the 2013 NCAA Tournament, plus some amateur analysis that will help ruin your bracket by the end of the first round.
We should start this post with a disclaimer: gambling is mostly illegal in the U.S. We are not condoning or encouraging you place real money on the outcome of a game played by college kids. In fact, we'd like to suggest you gamble for muffins if you just can't help yourself. Muffins are a good alternative, because they're delicious.
So, after all of that, here's this year's bracket:
Louisville, Kansas, Indiana and Gonzaga are this year's number one seeds. The nationally ranked number four Louisville squad earned the tournament's overall number one seed and were slotted into the Midwest bracket after they fought off a tough Syracuse team Saturday night to claim the last Big East championship Saturday night. Will Leitch actually guessed the entire bracket correctly over at Sports on Earth. Oh, and there's one glaring absence from this year's tournament: reigning champs Kentucky got left out completely after going 21-11 this year.
And, finally, some advice:
Don't listen to anyone. This is the NCAA tournament; you've been here before. No one knows anything and nothing ever makes sense. Duke will go on a run this year, because they've generally been terrible, and the only reliable part of the NCAA tournament is that chaos reigns. Or Duke will lose in the second round because they won't get past Cincinnati. Both of those outcomes sound entirely plausible, no? Exactly. The guy in your office who watches mid-major ball regularly, does all of his homework and could tell you offhand what Syracuse's backup point guard's stat averages are will not win your pool. The H.R manager's ten-year-old kid will. Just have fun with it. Throw some guesses at the wall and see what sticks.
The play in games kick off on March 19. Oh, we're excited.