March Madness: Reporter reflects on the damage done to his bracket

After an exciting first week of March Madness, everyone’s bracket has suffered some major damage. Most of which can be attributed to returning champion Villanova and annual tournament favorites like Duke (if anyone says that they had either one of these losing this early, they are probably lying to you) failing to even make it past the second round.

However, a couple of highly seeded teams are always going to get bounced early, so there is really nothing you can do about that; or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Despite the three teams listed above leaving the tournament early, my bracket is still pretty accurate compared to everyone else in the UHCL group on espn.com, where you can find my busted bracket in all of its glory. My bracket is currently ranked No. 11 out of the 38 brackets in the group in terms of accuracy, which is not too bad.

My prized SMU Mustangs from Dallas let me down when they got bounced in the first round after I picked them to reach the Elite 8. As my favorite upset pick, the team was supposed to shock the world by beating powerhouses like Baylor and Duke, but ended up losing by one point to lowly USC in the first round. SMU getting knocked out in the first round has definitely been the biggest disappointment of my bracket so far, and I probably let my state pride and local bias cloud my judgment on that pick.

The team that ended up shocking the world, like I had hoped SMU would have, was the Xavier Musketeers, a No. 11 seed who easily eliminated two higher seeded teams in Maryland and Florida State. Xavier is now receiving all of the love as this year’s Cinderella team that nobody saw coming. This should have been you, SMU! Even though it will only make my bracket worse, I will root for the Xavier Musketeers to go as far as they can, because everyone loves an underdog story.

Okay, enough talk of my bracket’s failures so far; it is now time to discuss its future failures throughout the rest of the tournament.

The team that I am kicking myself for not picking to win at all is the Kansas Jayhawks, who have dominated the tournament so far with future NBA talents: Josh Jackson, Frank Mason III and Devonte Graham. Watching those three guys dominate Michigan State together really made me wonder if anyone can beat them.

My championship pick was Gonzaga, who I am much less confident in now than I was when I made my bracket. Gonzaga barely beat Northwestern, who made the tournament this year for the first time in the school’s history because of some bad calls that went in their favor. They just do not look talented or athletic enough to advance much further in the tournament. I definitely should’ve picked Kansas as my champion instead of Gonzaga.

The other team that I picked to reach the championship game, Butler, is still in the tournament as well. Although I have more confidence in Butler getting there than I do in Gonzaga, I am starting to regret betting against likely future NBA star Lonzo Ball and the UCLA Bruins.

UCLA will be very tough for Butler to beat if they can get past North Carolina, which I think they will. I actually picked UCLA to lose in the next round to Kentucky before they can even face Butler, which I now think will not happen. In the end, I have learned that you should never underestimate the team that has the best player in the tournament, and Ball can do everything on the court at an NBA level already.

Although I do not have a whole lot of faith in my bracket going forward, I still hope that my picks prove me wrong (and initially right) so that I can look like a genius. Good luck to all whose championship picks are still alive because you will need it.

Also published on Medium.