I have just filled out my bracket for the 21st time. I have filled out brackets since 2003. My worst year off the top of my head was 2010. I have won the odd pool over the years and successfully picked the champion a few times.
For the most part I generally try to make my bracket look unique and consequently I could have a better average finish but at the end of the day, if your bracket has the same champ everyone else does than your office pool will more likely come down to a tiebreaker.
That's why I prefer the CBS pools where the number of points you get for the correct answer is determined by the number seed that team was. Gives some reward for correctly picking a #5 seed to advance to Elite 8.
I've been running a bracket pool through CBS for a handful of years now. You are all welcome to join the pool here.
I'll have some thoughts about the year in general in a bit. A lot of teams that were 14+ games over 500 that are definitely worthy of holding their own against the bubble teams that weren't close to the bubble because of a weak schedule because Power 4 teams are able to avoid playing mid majors.
This is a trend that I see going in a concerning direction that I would like to see change. We see upsets in the tournament all the time that makes the mid major's just as exciting as the bubble teams.
My hot take is that UC San Diego will be in the Pac 12 by 2030.
