A few years ago, when I was teaching American Presidency at Pitt, we did a class exercise the day before the college basketball tournament in which we randomly made choices that populated a bracket of predictions only our class could have created. It was fun, and I believe our random efforts actually predicted a Cinderella team (Virginia Commonwealth?). You never know, and since I don’t even watch one full basketball game a year anymore, it can be fun to find a way to engage with this big tournament that so many people focus on for the next couple weeks.
So when this random idea popped in my head to somehow match a box of 64 crayons to the 64 teams in the tournament, I ran with it, even though there was only about one day before the games began. And that’s how we created this bracket.
Contestants selected one of the 64 colors in the standard Crayola box and made a coin flip (heads or tails). Before I applied the coin flips to choose winners of each individual game in the tourney, I gave all teams seeded as a #1 or #2 an automatic first round victory.
Here then is how it all shook out…
So It’s a big showing for the state of Kansas!
I’m pretty sure we have the perfect bracket.
Now for folks who entered the contest selecting a Crayola color that has been randomly assigned to represent one of the teams in the tournament, I’ve used a random sorter to create the color code. We had 53 people select a color. That’s less than 64, which I figured could happen on such short notice, so I applied all colors chosen to the top 53 seeded teams in the tournament.
It’s like a lottery for team selections, only we don’t know which ones are the winners until they play the games!
So for those who selected colors, here is what team you got.
Ready?
Sure?
Okay 🙂
Here are the results.
In case you can’t see that chart on your phone, here it is in text form:
Villanova = Yellow Green
Wisconsin = Wisteria
Virginia Tech = Wild Strawberry
Virginia = White
Florida = Turquoise Blue
Middle Tenn. St. = Tumbleweed
SMU = Timberwolf
Baylor = Tickle Me Pink
South Carolina = Sky Blue
Duke = Sepia
Gonazaga = Sea Green
Northwestern = Scarlet
Vanderbilt = Salmon
Notre Dame = Robin’s Egg Blue
West Virginia = Red Orange
Maryland = Purple Mountains’ Majesty
Florida St. = Plum
St. Mary’s = Periwinkle
Arizona = Pacific Blue
Kansas = Orchid
Miami (FL) = Orange
Michigan St.= Olive Green
Iowa St.=Melon
Purdue=Mauvelous
Creighton = Mahogany
Oregon = Magenta
Michigan = Macaroni and Cheese
Louisville = Lavender
North Carolina = Indigo
Arkansas = Green
Seton Hall = Gray
Minnesota = Granny Smith Apple
Butler = Goldenrod
Cincinnati = Forest Green
UCLA = Cornflower
Dayton = Cerulean
Kentucky = Cadet Blue
Marquette = Burnt Sienna
VCU = Brick Red
Oklahoma St. = Blue Violet
Wichita St. = Blue Green
USC = Blue
Xavier = Black
Kansas St. = Bittersweet
Rhode Island = Asparagus
NC Wilmington = Gray
Princeton = Apricot
Nevada = Burnt Orange
Bucknell = Chestnut
Vermont = Red
Winthrop = Spring Green
E. Tennessee St. = Peach
I’m not going to add all the names of folks playing here. Feel free to let us know what team you got in the comments either here or back on Facebook. Some of you will be eliminated quickly, but a few will advance far and have a shot at a prize.
I’ll be providing updates along the way as they happen. The winner of the random drawing for the Starbucks gift card will be announced once we reach the Final Four.
Thanks for playing. It’s a fun way to reconnect with some folks I don’t get to see very often. And for those of us who don’t have a team competing it’s another reason to be interested in how the games shake out.
Good luck!
