THE CREATIVITY BEHIND BRACKETOLOGY BY SPENCER CONN

Did you know that the odds of creating a perfect bracket in this year’s NCAA Tournament are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808? Yeah neither did I… With such small odds, this should either force you to just give up and put the pen down, or go for the most unlikely bracket. With years of experience, creating your bracket is not solely based on facts or the stats sheet. But it should most certainly include a touch a creativity. Perhaps in this year’s bracket, your first right answer is Villanova. They won the big dance last year, and are coming into the tournament this year as the top overall seed. No brainer? Wrong.

I believe that creativity is what will win this year’s perfect bracket prediction award, where you should look to the second or third right answer. Go crazy with your picks…pick the 11 seed to make the final four. In addition, envision a number 1 seed going down to an unlikely 16 seed, and be the guy to say, “I told you so.” There’s no fun in picking all the top seeds to win, because in tournament history, that has never happened before.

Besides the basketball itself, the Bracketology study goes further and more creative when looking at it in a different lens. In the past eleven years, only one school has won the tournament that did not have blue in their logo (Louisville). Also, there’s almost always a twelve seed that upsets a five seed. With all this knowledge, create your bracket and challenge yourself to look beyond the actual basketball. Be more creative with your bracket and think outside of the box. Creativity in Bracketology relates to more than basketball. My main take aways from this are to take the risks, and celebrate the losses. You are almost never 100% right in selecting your picks, so rather be the one to pick the crazy upset and come tell me, “told ya so”.