Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries
The feeling comes back once every year. When it does, it’s the same feeling I’ve felt for the last twenty years or so of my life. It’s the feeling of . . . I can predict a perfect bracket. March Madness is a one-of-one. 64 teams playing 64 games over three to four weeks. One game matchups . . . survive and advance. The end of the college basketball season is truly a one-of-a-kind experience for the players, coaches, schools, fans, and alumni. It’s called madness for a reason. And every year, when I stare at a blank bracket I have the same thought: “this is the perfect bracket.” I know the reality is that this will never happen, as it truly never does happen with the probability so infinitely small that’s impossible. But you don’t have to look far for any website offering a substantial prize to the best bracket every year, so perfect or not, if you can get close, you can be rewarded handsomely.
My approach, like many of you, applies logic and randomness. All trying to get the perfect blend of rationality with chaos. But yet, before I set forth on my inputs to how these matchups will turn out, and which teams will continue to advance, I know that sometimes my own preparation just doesn’t matter. I’ve done this so many times in my life that I’ve had years when I filled out a bracket in five minutes, and others where I took five hours, and the output is mostly the same. But every year, when the calendar turns to March again, the feeling comes back to me – the overconfidence, the irrationality. Because in my mind, despite my efforts some years to trust my instincts, my confidence comes from trying to break down each matchup, some real and some hypothetical, to tell the stories that can emerge, to sharpen my predictions with rationality mixed with chaos. Who knows, maybe one of these years it will all come together.
Back in the NFL world, in assessing this easily digestible ten-game slate filled with real matchups, I’m getting that feeling again. I can do this, we can do this, we’re going to go through and attack with a rational approach infused with a little bit of chaos. We know these teams by now, we have a sense of what the public will expect, and we also know tendencies, trends, regressions, and more. So let’s jump in and get the perfect bracket this week!
