Kids Can Pick This NCAA Tournament Just as Well as Experts

How a family tradition proved there's no need to watch college basketball to pick a winning bracket

USA TODAY Sports

FRISCO, Texas – There's a reason why children aren't allowed to bet on the NCAA Tournament.

The casinos and betting apps would go broke.

Ever since my now 17-year-old daughter was a little girl, we've created family March Madness brackets with the winner getting some sort of prize once the tournament ends. 

When my son came along and got old enough to repeat back words like Old Dominion and Kennesaw State, we added him to the mix as well.

It became such a popular tradition that my wife launched a bracket game at the school where she teaches as a fundraiser that allows teachers earn a jeans pass for signing up and an additional jeans pass for each game the team they choose to ride with wins.

Needless to say, Eric Musselman's Razorbacks have kept my wife in denim in the warm months of spring quite often while her Kentucky counterparts continued to crawl around on elementary floors and monitor afternoon recess in dress clothes.

As for the home brackets, about five years ago, my daughter decided she was going to will a 16 seed to beat a No. 1 each year and would be proud to have one of the few brackets in the world with the right pick.

She almost chose UMBC because of their weird name, but chose differently that season. She was beside herself when Virginia went down and swore to never give up. 

Five years later, she not only correctly Fairleigh-Dickinson to win the play-in game, but she nailed the upset of Purdue. Half the neighborhood heard one of the quietest young ladies you will ever meet lose her mind when that one went down. 

Some dreams do come true.

AH Media

As a result, she is currently the only member of the family with her entire Final Four still intact. 

As for my 10-year-old son, he nailed both the Furman and Princeton upsets to jump off to a huge lead after the opening round. I have no idea how he went about choosing this year considering I am certain he is only aware that Arkansas, Kentucky and Bradley have basketball teams. 

Nonetheless, he nailed 24 games in what was a crazy first couple of days.

My wife's strategy is to pick with her heart, which is her greatest strength and weakness. It's allowed her to accurately pick the Kentucky NCAA collapse that has extended this entire decade while also racking up valuable points from Arkansas.

The only exception this year was Alabama, and that's only because she couldn't come up with a match-up where she could talk herself into a Crimson Tide loss no matter how much she's dying to see it happen.

As for me, I usually pick with what has been a reliable gut instinct over the years. There are things you can see in these conference tournaments and on Selection Sunday that give off "that darn team" vibes. 

However, I missed a lot of the smaller conference tournaments this season covering Razorback baseball and missed Selection Sunday driving back to Dallas from Fayetteville after a few days of covering spring football practice. 

So, I decided to go conventional wisdom. Go with ones and twos, lean on power conferences, but find a 10, 11, 12, 13 and 15 seed to throw in for good measure. 

I proudly rolled out a Final Four of Alabama, Texas, Kansas and Purdue thinking I've got this year's family challenge in the bag. 

Other choices along the way catered to the Pac-12 always being better in the tournament than expected and picking against anyone who struggled against Arkansas outside of a short stint from late January to around Valentine's Day when the Hogs were at their peak.

That's why I missed Creighton in the first round as well as Auburn and a had a second round loss scheduled for San Diego State. Arizona got the chance to run all the way to an Elite 8 loss to Alabama because of the Pac-12 thing and how much better they looked than Arkansas, Creighton and San Diego State in Maui.

And that's why I'm in 4th place watching my daughter run away with this year's bracket. 

If someone out there wants to roll with the Great One, she's only got one team missing from her Elite 8 and everyone left in the last two rounds. 

Houston vs. Texas.

UConn vs. Gonzaga

Tennessee vs. Kansas St.

Alabama vs. Whomever fills the one spot she missed.

My son still has a good shot with Houston winning it all.

As for my wife and I, the future looks bleak. Half my final four is gone and so is hers.

Her Alabama vs. Kansas final is a bust, although considering she lives and breathes Razorback basketball, she's probably fine with that. 

There's still a chance I get Alabama and Texas in the final, but there still wouldn't be enough points for me to catch my daughter.

Instead, even though I have spent more than half my life covering college basketball, I am trying to run down a 10-year-old who uses the time my wife and I spend watching the tournament to go code his own video games. 

Meanwhile, my wife, who is currently in second place, joins me in running down a young lady who, now that FDU is out, takes breaks from trying to design a self-pressurizing suit for astronauts and studying the astrophysics involved with black holes to check in and see if the Razorbacks are winning by enough for it to be safe to walk past my wife to grab a water from the fridge.

So, if your bracket is busted and you're frustrated to no end that whatever you had on the line is now out of reach, just ease your mind with the assurance that you had as good of a chance winning by studying these teams intensely as you would have if the neighbor's 8-year-old theatre prodigy has picked it for you. 

I guess that's why they call it madness.

HOGS FEED:

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NCAA TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE, TV LISTINGS FOR THE SWEET 16

MAYBE ALABAMA COACHES NEED TO BE A LITTLE MORE LIKE RAZORBACK COACHES

MIKE ANDERSON HAS LEGITIMATE ARGUMENT TO MAKE WITH ST. JOHN'S OVER FIRING "FOR CAUSE"

NCAA TOURNAMENT ROUND: SEC EDITION

DAVE VAN HORN GETS WIN NO. 1,400 HEADING INTO SHOWDOWN WITH NO. 1 LSU

SABAN PROVES ARKANSAS HAS SOMETHING ALABAMA DOESN'T IN LATEST PRESS CONFERENCE

NATIONAL CELEBRITY HELPS ARKANSAS SOCIAL MEDIA STAR TO LAS VEGAS FOR SWEET 16

RAZORBACKS ADVANCE TO SUPER 16 WITH BIG WIN OVER STEPHEN F. AUSTIN ON MONDAY NIGHT

STATE OF ARKANSAS CRIED ALONG WITH DEVO DAVIS AFTER WIN OVER KANSAS

SANOGO ISN'T BIGGEST THREAT HOGS FACE IN SWEET 16 AGAINST UCONN

WATCH: HOGS' FORWARD KAMANI JOHNSON PREVIEWING THURSDAY MATCHUP WITH UCONN IN SWEET 16

WEGNER'S RECORD SETTING HOME RUN COMPLETES SWEEP OF AUBURN

YOU DIDN'T THINK IT WOULD GET EASIER FOR RAZORBACKS DID YOU?

HOGS' COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN HAS ACCOMPLISHED WHAT ONLY ONE OTHER COACH HAS DONE AT ARKANSAS

HOGS WILL NEED TO SUMMON INNER JOKER TO TAKE OUT JAYHAWKS' BATMAN AND ROBIN DUO

HUNTER HOLLAN, HAGEN SMITH COMBINE TO START SEC PLAY WITH WIN OVER AUBURN

DEFENSE REASON FOR TWO BIG MOVES BY RAZORBACKS IN WIN OVER ILLINOIS

MUSSELMAN KNOWS PAST MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR THIS YEAR IN NCAA TOURNAMENT

NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKET

ARKANSAS BASEBALL SCHEDULE

FAYETTEVILLE WEATHER UPDATE

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