Bracket eschewers unite!

[throatybeard]

I don't do brackets. I last did one in 2000. I won a big pool in 1997. I sucked in 1999. The first year I didn't do one, you know what happened. Still, it's hard to take credit for that.

I don't enjoy them. Mainly, because they force me to pick against rooting interests, to cheer against upset. Picking chalk almost always is rewarded over the whole tournament. Otherwise sports-apathetic people fake an interest for two weeks. It's just bizarre.

Abstaining from brackets since 2001. Who's with me?

[sue71, esq]

The last one I did was in '99. Enough said.

[LetItBD08]

I'm with you. Besides Duke, I like to see a good amount of upsets in the tournament. When you pick the chalk more often than not, it kind of detracts from my rooting interest. It also makes me paranoid over every game played when all i want to see is some good basketball.

[Bob Green]

Throaty,

I admire your fortitude. However, being the weak-willed person that I am, I always succumb to the fever of the moment and complete a bracket with two typical results:

1. I get extremely lucky and my bracket is only kinda sorta bad. It's bad but not embarassingly bad.

2. I rip it into pieces at the end of the first weekend and claim I misplaced it. For some reason, none of my friends believe me.

Bob Green
Yokosuka, Japan

[MChambers]

I did them in the 80s and early 90s, then gave them up, and feel much better for it.

[Duke Mom in KS]

I actually won the Swanwick Family Traveling Trophy last year because my bracket was the least horrible of all of ours. My Duke DIL Catherine won it in the first year and I imagine I'll have to send it on again this year. I pick Duke to win it all every year, but still didn't win in 2001 because everyone else picked them, too.

[throatybeard]

Catherine won our pool in 1999. That girl got some mad skillz.

[hurleyfor3]

Yeah, as it turns out I'm too cool for brackets too this year.

[patentgeek]

but for me filling out a bracket is a rite of spring. I started filling out my own bracket in 1972 (I was 11 at the time - I actually had to draw the bracket myself, with a ruler and a pencil, then fill it in - I believe that I picked the Ragin' Cajuns of Southwest Louisiana to win that year, which did not come to pass). I've filled one out every year since. It's become a big deal with our family - the kids get very excited about the selection show and spend much of that Sunday night perusing the brackets (to the detriment of other obligations, such as homework).

For me it's less about winning a pool than becoming familiar with the teams and the tournament. Pre-ESPN and -Internet it was a lot harder to keep track of things, and filling out the bracket helped. I've also found that I derive a lot more joy from correctly picking upsets than from winning a pool - for example, I picked Cleveland State to beat Indiana in 1986 and have been very proud of myself ever since.

So kudos for you for not getting sucked into the tourney pool hype, but I'm sure I'll be filling out brackets forever.

[throatybeard]

Kudos on Cleveland State. They still show that on ESPNC at the time.

I'm glad to hear you did brackets as early as the 1970s. Being only 30, I wasn't sure if the practice pre-dated the 64-team era.

[patentgeek]

It was much harder to find a bracket in those days - they might print one in the newspaper, but more likely they would simply list the games and times, and you had to interpret from there. I had to figure out what the bracket should look like (and I messed up multiple times) because there were 25 teams (I mean, what does a 25 team bracket look like? Especially to an 11 year old). So the whole bracket thing is pretty ingrained as a result.

[hurleyfor3]

I'm glad to hear you did brackets as early as the 1970s. Being only 30, I wasn't sure if the practice pre-dated the 64-team era.

We definitely had a tournament pool in high school (for money) in 1986. So it's at least as old as the 64-team era.

[BlueDevilBaby]

I always do a few brackets with different groups of friends, coworkers, etc. But I always find myself rooting for the underdog when there is a chance (unless it's against Duke, of course), even if it would bust up my brackets. My heart always rules my wallet. At least I won one pool because Duke beat Michigan. Thanks, Duke!:D

[rsvman]

Are you kidding me? I LOVE brackets. Mind you, I don't BET on the tournament at all.

Over the last several years I have wasted a bunch of time on the brackets. I get the Monday morning USA Today the day after selection Sunday. You can waste HOURS on the tournament preview section, and I always do because it's fun and gets me even more excited about the tournament. Then, I print up 4 brackets, to do an experiment. On one, I use Sagarin. On the second, I use RPI. On the third, I pick strictly by seed. On the fourth, I do MY picks. Then, at the end of the tournament, I see which bracket did best.

And guess what? MY picks have won it every year.



Just goes to show that neither the RPI nor the Sagarin is worth a lick. ;)

[Clipsfan]

Catherine won our pool in 1999. That girl got some mad skillz.

Yeah, I never had a chance in our pools back at school. I still do them though, and even won one last year, although it appears that I have a better chance at the ones with weird point structures (such as upset points etc)

[willywoody]

i don't think i've done a bracket in 3 to 4 years. they are not allowed at work and the majority of my friends away from work could care less about sports at all.

[05dukie]

I too LOVE brackets. During my four years at Duke I actually made a large bracket on my dorm door made of cut-outs of team names and mascots from various newspapers. It was more of a real-time bracket than predictions...as the tournament progressed my roommate and I would fill in the winners with more newspaper clippings. It was a thing of beauty. Of course, my freshman year I ripped the whole thing down moments after J-Will missed a certain key free throw against Indiana. Ugh.
GO DUKE!!!

[The Gordog]

I don't do brackets. I last did one in 2000. I won a big pool in 1997. I sucked in 1999. The first year I didn't do one, you know what happened. Still, it's hard to take credit for that.

I don't enjoy them. Mainly, because they force me to pick against rooting interests, to cheer against upset. Picking chalk almost always is rewarded over the whole tournament. Otherwise sports-apathetic people fake an interest for two weeks. It's just bizarre.

Abstaining from brackets since 2001. Who's with me?

I only do a bracket when I can seriously pick Duke to win it all - which is more years than not lately. This year, no bracket. I'm not going to cheer against Duke, ever, but I don't think they'll be in the FF this year. Sorry, Ozzie.

[jjasper0729]

I never do any brackets unless it's only in fun just to see mainly because I always pick Duke to advance and always pick UNC to lose in the first round. I agree that doing the brackets for anything OTHER than just fun makes it hard to have rooting interests.