Enzo Candolo | Sports Editor
March 16, 2023
Some like to claim the month of March is home to the world’s greatest sports tournament. And to that, I’d have to slightly disagree and throw it at number two, just behind the actual greatest tournament, FIFA World Cup (I have a slight bias..anyway, back to MM).
And as for the title, if I’m being completely honest, I totally click-baited you guys so hard. There is literally no way you even get close to completing a “perfect bracket.” I genuinely don’t understand why some people think they can meet the challenge. You have a 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (if you guess or flip a coin).
San Clemente High School junior Carter Cooper made a bracket for Mr. Popovich’s class since it was an extra credit assignment, and he’s doing fairly well. “I pretty much went by who has a cooler mascot or just randomly guessed, and its actually working out pretty well as of right now.” And then a 1 in 120.2 billion (if you know a little something about basketball and do the needed research).
However, if you need a bit of help, and know a “perfect bracket” doesn’t mathematically exist, well, unfortunately, you’re too late now since the tournament has already started. But I did some research, so I might as well tell you what to expect and a quick update on what happened on opening day.
12 teams played in the South, four in the East, and eight in both the Midwest and West. And if you are like me and a majority of the country, your bracket is already bust, mainly because of Virginia and the University of Arizona.
In the Midwest, #7 Texas A&M was more of a flip game cause their seed was a little inflated, in my opinion, but #10 Penn St. slaughtered them quickly.
Another junior, Lucas Robbins, is extremely “hyped” and said, “In my friend’s bracket I’m one of the only ones who took Peen State so I’m pretty excited I’m a point ahead right now.”
In the South, oh my goodness. Was #2 Arizona bad, or was #16 Princeton good? And then, #4 seeded Virginia selling the bag to #13 Furman.
Other than those few games, everything else went pretty uniform. Number one seed BAMA bulldozed through, as for #2 UCLA, a very under-seeded #6 Duke, and #1 Kansas. Not surprising at all, Houston almost choked, then pulled through the second half. But for the most part, the first official day of March Madness went well, and a decent amount of good basketball was played.
As we progress in the tournament, I’ll update later articles about the wins, losses, and, best of all, the upsets that destroy people’s brackets and whatever they have at stake, whether money is on the line or just bragging rights.
At the end of the day, just sit back and enjoy. Happy March Madness everyone!
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