Wall St. Journal's Blind Bracket

I just filled out a blind bracket at WSportsJournalists.com and I was pretty surprised by the results.

A team I didn't have in any Final Four predictions was my national champion (Arizona). The rest of my final four was North Carolina, Purdue and BYU. Out of the 68 or so teams, I knew about 10 of them, most of them Big Ten teams. The others, I had no clue about.

http://graphicsweb.wSportsJournalists.com/documents/BLINDFOLDBRACKETS1103/

 

The only one obvious to me was VCU, because they referred to them beating UCLA and playing Tennessee tough. BYU was pretty easy to figure out, too, with the reference to one player being their whole offense.

I'm going to go with it. Why the hell not? I've never won a pool. The final it gave me was Duke over Notre Dame, with Ohio State and BYU in the Final Four. I picked three of those four on my own before using the blind bracket (had Florida instead of BYU). Only double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16 were Marquette and Belmont.

Also, the fake nicknames it gave the teams were awesome.

 

North Carolina, San Diego State, Florida, Kansas, with Rock Chalk Jayhawks beating SDSU in the finals.

 

My Final Four: Ohio State, UConn, Kansas and Florida. The first three, I'm cool with. But Florida? Yikes.

 

Mountain West-heavy with BYU and San Diego State, Kansas and North Carolina. Kansas over SDSU in the final game.

 

Kansas, Kentucky, UConn and BYU in the Final Four, with BYU beating UConn.

http://graphicsweb.wSportsJournalists.com/documents/BLINDFOLDBRACKETS1103/print.html?r=65,47,40,62,2,31,19,13,21,10,24,4,0,32,49,12,20,11,25,6,1,33,16,14,40,9,26,5,3,34,17,15,23,8,39,7,2,13,10,4,0,12,11,6,1,14,9,5,3,15,8,39,13,4,0,11,1,9,3,8,13,11,1,8,11,8,8,-1

 

First-round upsets: Oakland d. Texas, Richmond d. Vanderbilt, Marquette d. Xavier, Gonzaga d. St. John's, Florida State d. Texas A&M
Second-round upsets: Cincinnati d. Connecticut, ODU d. Pitt
Sweet 16 upsets: Cincinnati d. San Diego State, Purdue d. Notre Dame
Regional finals: Ohio State d. North Carolina, Duke d. Cincinnati, Purdue d. Kansas, Kansas State d. Florida
National semifinals: Ohio State d. Duke, Purdue d. Kansas State
Title game: Ohio State d. Purdue

Would have been a bit more sporting had they given you games randomly, instead of going down the brackets region by region. Also figured out about a dozen of the schools. Still fun.

 

This is a great, great idea. Even if only to change things up.

 

I tried this, but damn. Way too much reading and way too time-consuming. I'll stick with my usual awful picks based on very little information and intelligence.

 

My final four was Xavier (?!?!), Duke, Pitt and Kansas.

With Kansas beating Xavier (?!?!?) for the title.

 

My Final Four: Kentucky, San Diego St., Illinois, Florida! Wow. SDSU winning the title. Lots of upsets.