It's time to fill out your bracket and time to over think everything. I try to fill out a bracket every year, but since the stupid play in games that happen on Tuesday and Wednesday, it's become more difficult. Let me put all my cards on the table now, the play in games suck.

But, you have to play the cards your dealt, so most likely you have to choose the play in games. Hopefully not though. But, whether you do or don't, here some ways to fill out your bracket other than pretending to know anything about a sport you only started paying attention to last week.

  1. Go by seeding. Choose the team with the higher seed. Yeah, odds of this working out are slim because there's always upsets. But trust me, this is better than some of the other methods I have. And when it comes to the Final Four, you can pick another method from this list to pick.
  2. Go with the time tested "which mascot would win in a fight" method.
  3. Pick a winner based on what you think of the area of the country that school is from. Sorry Florida, you're all first round exits.
  4. Go based completely on preconceived notions about that school's basketball program. Hello Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, etc.
  5. And finally, this is the one I'm going with this year. Use my random number generator method. Here's how it works:
    1. Based on how that school is ranked is what chance they have of winning. There are 64 teams in the tournament. Yes, I'm leaving out the play in games for now. You have a one seed versus a 16 seed. The one seed is given numbers 1 through 60. The 16 seed gets numbers 61 through 64. Find a random number generator website and have it pick a number between 1 and 64. If it lands on anything between 1 and 60, the top seed moves on. If it somehow picks 61 through 64, you go with the 16 seed.
    2. Now, when you get to the other seeds, you will basically break it down based on the difference between the two seeds. A number two seed gets numbers 1 through 56. The number 15 gets numbers 57 through 64.
    3. When you get to the later rounds, it kinda works based on your judgement. By the Sweet 16, you could have a number 7 versus a number 11. So the easiest thing to do is start in the middle, at number 32, and move the possible chances of winning based on the seeds.
    4. ***MATH WARNING*** Here's what I do for the later rounds. You divide the higher seed by the lower seed. Let's say you have a 7 playing an 11. So you end up with .63. Multiple .63 and 64 together. That gives you 40.72. Always round up or down based, in this case we round up to 41. The 7 seed gets numbers 1 through 41, while the 11 seed gets 42 through 64. The higher odds always goes to the higher seed.

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