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Chances Are Good That The Chalk Robot is Better Than You


Before the tournament started I filled out a bunch of brackets on ESPN.com. One of which I filled out as a test to see how a mindless bracket would work out, a bracket involving one single thought and one decision maker. If the team has a lower seed than they win. Thus the 1 seed makes the final four, the 2 seed makes the elite 8, the 3 and 4 seeds make the sweet 16, etc. Well after two weeks, this is my best bracket and chances are good that its better than your bracket as well.

As of the end of the elite 8, after all #1 seeds made history, the 100% Chalk Bracket currently sits at the 96th percentile of all brackets. After 4 rounds the bracket has only gotten 16 games wrong, eight in the first round, five in the second, and three in the sweet 16. Would this bracket win your pool? In a massive pool of thousands, most likely not. In the Deadspin pool of 3472 it sits in 85th place, so chances are someone will finish above the picks. But in a pool with 50 or so participants this bracket, the lamest of all, would most likely still give you the opportunity to run home with the cash while your bracket likely has already been thrown in the fireplace for kindling.

In the end this has truly been the tournament of the favorite. Sure Davidson made a huge run and there were some exciting #12 and #13 upsets in week one, but that has been it. In the entire South Regional there was one single upset, Michigan St. over Pittsburgh. Not exactly a big time upset. In the East Regional only 2, Arkansas over Indiana and Louisville over Tennessee. Again, not really prime upsets. In the West and Midwest regional the #12 and #13 seeds both pulled off upsets, but than the #12 seed sealed the trip to the Sweet 16 in both. At the end of the day only 11 games were won by the lower seed. That's a 49-11 record for the favorite. Not much madness in that.

Comments

Anonymous said…
20 points behind you on my best of five brackets. Not a bad way to pick really. In theory, it should hold up, but there's always a few flies in the ointment.

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