Who could have called all of this year’s upsets in March Madness? The better question is, who would have thought to even pick this many upsets? Games like Morehead State over Louisville; give me a break. Teams like Virginia Commonwealth knocking off nearly every power conference in the country on their way to the Final Four; yeah right. And everyone’s favorite Cinderella, Butler, finding a way to knock off Pittsburgh, then Wisconsin, then Florida, while dancing their way into another national championship game, this year against Connecticut. I believed in the latter. Well, kind of.

A middle school librarian in Oregon and an East Brunswick, New Jersey man were two of the people that filled out a bracket this year that correctly picked (I still say luckily stumbled upon) all four Final Four teams correctly. The librarian filled hers out on the idea that cats and dogs reign supreme and her favorite numbers being “seven and 11” surely helped too. Why she picked Butler as her Final Four team? Four letters in the first name plus “seven” letters in the last name of their head coach equals… you guessed it, “11”. It also helped their mascot is a dog (Bulldogs). The New Jersey man did his on a last minute encouragement from his son. He was later interviewed on SportsCenter for his “genius” status.

My friends and I in Jacobs Hall had the idea of filling out a completely random bracket this year just to see how the concept of luck does in March Madness. How did we do? I’m glad you asked.

Having access to a quarter, my friends and I laid down the ground rules: All 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s would advance past their first game and the remaining games were all left up to a coin flip. Did we have some crazy upsets? You bet we did, but the idea behind the madness was pretty well thought out. Each matchup required a separate flip. Heads would advance the favorite and tails would advance the underdog.

We did have some craziness involved. Case in point, Georgia was our Final Four team out of the East region. How did they fare? They lost in their first game to Washington, 68-65. But our newly found method also provided us some selections that many across the county didn’t think twice about. Take Florida State, for example. This was a Seminole team who came out of the “weak” ACC without knowing whether their star player, Chris Singleton, would even play. Not only did he play, he led them to wins over Texas A&M and Notre Dame before falling to VCU in overtime. Who called that? We did.

The most amazing, and yet hardest to believe, came with our national championship matchup. Now before I brag, I have to reiterate that we had Georgia in the Final Four. But the amazing thing is that good ol’ Mr. George Washington correctly helped us pick the championship matchup between Butler and Connecticut.

So for all you self-proclaimed bracketologists out there that believe reading countless articles and scouting reports about your teams are the way to go, keep this in mind for next year. Sometimes, going with cats and dogs, colors, and straight up flipping a coin is better than research. Like they always say in sports, it’s better to be lucky than good.