It seems like everyone is filling out a bracket these days.
At the State Press, we did too.
Here are our brackets, with justification below.
Matthew Tonis: ASU basketball beat writer
Rationale: None given
Logan Newman: ASU women's basketball beat writer
Rationale: Last year, I predicted too many upsets and ended up having a terrible bracket. This season I went ultra conservative, maybe too much. My gut tells me Kentucky won't win. No way they'll have a perfect season. But my gut also tells me that none of the teams they play'll can can beat them.
Julia Shumway: Editor-in-Chief
Rationale: As I do every year, I chose my bracket based on the team mascot. It soon became clear that having a good mascot is not the same as having a good team, as only one of the No. 1 seeds made it out of the first round. This is probably why the Sun Devils are not in the tournament. My final seeds came down to WVU, which has an attractive bearded man, and North Carolina State, with the gorgeous puppy Tuffy. In the end, cute beat hot.
Stefan Modrich: Sports Reporter
Rationale: The national champion will indeed come from the Midwest region, only it won't be Kentucky. Butler's been there before, and with a deep, veteran team, anything can happen in March. Hey, the third time's the charm, right?
Shelby Slade and Micaela Rodríguez: News and Opinion editors
Rationale: This bracket is aesthetically pleasing. We picked based not on their skills, but rather on their fashion choices, which is a real Hail Mary of a tactic. We hope it will pay off.
Ben Moffat: Assistant Photo Editor
Rationale: I don't know anything about college basketball, but I'd never filled out a bracket before and wanted to join in, so I decided to have some fun with it. Instead of thinking about basketball, I made my picks based on which coach I thought could win in a fistfight. I gave some weight to age and size, but older, more frail coaches could make up for these disadvantages with other attributes like scary yelling faces, strong sweater vest game or looking like they kick puppies for fun. In the event of a tie, the same comparison was conducted between the teams' mascots.
Ryan Clarke: Sports Reporter
Rationale: When filling out my bracket, I make sure to avoid going completely chalk and trust my gut to pick the key upsets. Every year I have a surprise team in the final four, and this year it's 5-seed Northern Iowa. My Cinderella team is 14-seed Albany, who I have going to the sweet 16 before falling to 7-seed Michigan State.
Jacob Goldstein: A & E Editor
Rationale: I don't need a rationale. I'm JGold.
Danica Barnett: Social Media Editor
Rationale: I picked Baylor to win because I grew up in a Bears household. The rest of my picks were just (hopefully) lucky guesses.
