Fun and creative ways to fill out your March Madness bracket

Everybody does a March Madness bracket: your college hoops-obsessed friends, our co-workers who haven’t watched a second of the season, you name it. There are many ways you can pick your bracket. You can study the stats and delve deep into Ken Pomeroy’s numbers, or you can pick chalk. And after all of that, as the cliché goes, somebody who made random picks wins your bracket pool. So why not have fun? Here are some different ways to make your bracket picks that could spice it up for you this year.

Mascot fight!

The question you must ask yourself is simple: Which mascot would win in a fight? It leads to a lot of interesting questions. Could a Spartan take down a grizzly with its relatively primitive weapons? What about weather? Can anything beat a hurricane or a cyclone? Depends on how you want to view it. Either way, this is a lot more interesting than looking at defensive rating or offensive rebound percentages.

Flip a coin 

Why not take thinking out of the process entirely? Let random chance be your guide. Flip a coin for every matchup. Take the winner. Sure, maybe you will want to give yourself a few picks of your own for, say, the No. 1-versus-No. 16 matchups. Or just straight up flip a coin, and let the chips fall where they may.

Cinderella

It’s easy to pick chalk, which is to say pick all the favorites, but it’s also boring. We root for upsets. We root for the underdogs. So why not reflect that in your bracket? Pick a bunch of upsets. Go for the giant killers. Pick every 12 to beat the five. Have a sixth seed winning it all. It will be fun to see the upsets happen but even better if you actually picked them. Plus, you get bragging rights.

School spirit 

Did you go to a college in the tournament? Why not pick its team to win it all? You’ll be rooting for it anyway. Pick your friends' alma maters, your families' and so on. Is there someone at work you don't like who went to Duke? Have the Blue Devils getting upset in the second round. If it happens, you’ll get double the pleasure.

Ask an animal 

Remember that octopus that picked all the World Cup games? Why not get in on that kind of fun? If you’ve got a pet, let it make the pick. Give it a couple of pieces of food, one representing each team in a matchup. Whichever one it eats first is the one you pick. Or give two toy options representing teams. Hey, even fish could get in on the fun here. That octopus did a good job with its pick. Maybe your dog can take it one step further.

Fashion police

Maybe you want to pick the teams that play well, but how about picking the teams that look good? Which uniform do you like better? Which color scheme pops more? If you need a tiebreaker, you can go with which team’s coach is the snappier dresser. Some coaches are real fashion plates; some look like they are still dressed for a high school dance.

Dream school 

Maybe you loved the school you went to, but there are probably some others that would have been dream choices for you. Perhaps they are great academic schools, or maybe, you know, they are in Malibu (shout out to Pepperdine). Which schools in every matchup would you have rather attended? Move them on in your bracket. Fingers crossed you had a lot of North Carolina schools on your wish list.

Shoot for it 

It’s March Madness. Why not shoot some hoops yourself? Find the nearest basketball net. Shoot a free throw for each matchup. Choose one team if you make it, and the other if you miss. Not only will it help you fill your bracket, but it also will improve your free-throw shooting.

Around the world

No, this isn’t another basketball reference. Get yourself a globe. Assign every team to a country. Spin the globe, and drop your finger down on it. Choose the team that is closer to the spot where your finger landed. If it’s too close to call, spin again. If nothing else, it gives you an excuse to study the countries of the world.

Shuffle play 

This one is fun, but a little complicated. It’s maybe a better way to pick your Final Four. Create a playlist of 64 songs. Then hit shuffle play. The first four songs that play become your Final Four. Then create a separate playlist of those four songs. The first one you hear is the champion, and the second one is the runner-up, if the bracket lines up with your songs, at least. That’s what makes this idea a little hard for a full bracket.

Alma mater 

Not your alma mater. That’s been covered. If you watch March Madness, you are probably an NBA fan. You likely have favorite teams and some favorite players. In this modern NBA, most players went to college for at least one year. Choose their colleges. If you love Kevin Durant, back Texas. If you’re a fan of Joel Embiid, root for Kansas. And if Paul George is your guy, well, you’d better hope Fresno State makes the tourney.

Just do it

You’ve probably heard the improv comedy motto “don’t think.” Apply it to picking your bracket. Just fill it out. Look at the team names, choose one and go for it. Let the spirit move you. It will be completely stress free, and it will also take you a minute, tops. Then you can just get ready to watch the tourney and enjoy it, knowing you have basically as good of a chance of winning your pool as those who spent four hours on their brackets.