The First NCAA Basketball Bracket of 2023

Uncriticizable and probably correct

If you’re like me, you can’t predict the future (and if you’re like me that bums you out). If you’re like me, you have a healthy appetite for gambling, and if you’re still like me you don’t want to needlessly jeopardize your pride. At the risk of alienating anyone or overcomplicating things too early let’s list off a few more ways you may be like me:

• You have general sports knowledge and awareness but you’re far from an expert. Your main focus is soccer. You used to know a lot about baseball but now you’re more of a casual fan.
• You find college sports fun but can be overwhelmed by the scope. Too many teams to keep up with!
• You often feel the need to prove yourself, or at least to look like you somewhat know what you’re talking about.
• You recognize that you have no competitive advantage when it comes to college basketball knowledge.
• You recognize the absurd odds of correctly predicting even a handful of events, let alone a 64 (68 technically) team single-elimination knockout tournament.
• If, having found no edge, you are forced to accept defeat, you feel inclined to protect your ego in a creative (read: obnoxious) way, so as to still technically partake in the fun, but without the inevitable shame of human error.

Uh oh, you’re a lot like me! On the bright side, you woke up the morning after the NCAA men’s basketball championship game having correctly predicted the winner, but on the other hand your bracket was kind of a bust. Getting the tournament winner right didn’t have much to do with expertise — after all, you are a 29-year-old…actually, what are you? Have you figured out what you do yet? Or who you are? Perhaps not, but we know for a fact that you’re not a college basketball pundit, you just happened to have a hunch this time, which is not a sustainable strategy.

You cannot brag about your bracket because despite picking the correct winner it is mostly full of failure, and because bragging about a bracket isn’t something you would do. Joining the chorus of so-and-so’s just isn’t your style. Sure, some so-and-so’s stand out a little — maybe they got really, really lucky, or maybe they know what they’re talking about. You don’t have the discipline to know what you’re talking about and you used up all of your luck on that $200 scratch-off win in 2019.