March Madness

This year, our family decided to take part in the grand old American pastime of making our picks for the NCAA Men's basketball tournament.

Each of us employed our own special form of divination to fill out our brackets, and you can view the status of our family's competition by clicking here.

Audrey
Because Audrey has only been on earth for 4 weeks, we gave her a bye for this year. But she's on notice: if you're old enough to eat solid food, you're mature enough to predict the outcome of sporting events.


The Toddster
Realizing that he again forgot to watch any college basketball this year, The Toddster tried to project an image of self-assured confidence by not picking Kansas to win it all.


Erin
Relying on a complex blend of logic, statistical analyses, and regression models Erin ended up with an all-Beehive-State final.

Highlights of her picks include:

• Wisconsin advancing to the final four "because Sam's from Wisconsin";
• #1-seeded Duke cruising to the elite eight before running into the buzzsaw that is the Utah State Aggies (sorry, Nancy); and
  
• My personal favorite moment: BYU taking down Georgetown in the semi-finals (even though it means Crystal will have one less Christmas card to send out this year).

Joseph
When we found out President Obama was filling out a bracket, we figured Joseph ought to as well.


ESPN filled out the President's first round picks for him, so we put Joseph on equal footing by filling in the first round for him before letting him call the shots on all of the remaining matchups.

Joseph labored through his first NCAA bracket with a multi-hour process that involved painstakingly looking up each matchup's mascots and logos and then answering which one he liked better or, alternatively, which one would be better at basketball.


Although no one will believe me, the only time I coached him was when he tried to eliminate the Hoyas right off the bat. I told him that mommy had gone to the gray bulldog school when she was younger, and he wisely agreed to switch his pick, even though the other team had an orange dog.



Market researchers looking to capture that elusive toddler/pre-school demographic would be well-advised to note that:

1. animal mascots always beat out human/"character" mascots; and
2. mascots resembling muppets tested strongly among this sample of two-and-a-half year olds.

Accordingly, a showdown between the Syracuse Orangeman and Xavier's Blue Blob was inevitable:


Ultimately, however, Joseph proved--once again--that he is a miniature version of his father by picking Kentucky (aka "the other Wildcats--with yellow") to win it all:



Again, I promise, I didn't coach him on his responses (other than his first Georgetown match)--but if he wins the whole thing, I did teach him everything he knows.

Wrap Up
Once more, here's the link to our brackets.

For comparison's sake, we've also included the President's brackets and an entry that shows what would happen if you just picked the higher seed to win every time ("chalk").

With a year's worth of bragging rights at stake, the next few weeks are going to be intense around here.