Selection Sunday is finally here for the 2016 NCAA Tournament, and with the 68-team field for the event just announced, it's time to start filling in brackets in the hopes of making some sense of an insane season of college basketball.
This year's tournament projects as one of the wildest romps through March Madness as we've seen in some time. The regular season was marked by brand-name teams like Kansas and North Carolina handing off the top spot in national polls like a hot potato, mid-majors upending the status quo (and having a heck of a lot of fun doing it), and the most talented player in college basketball playing on a bad team.
No one knows what's going to happen over the next three weeks. And you're going to want to fill out your bracket with a pencil this year. Good news: here is our blank bracket, in .pdf form, ready for you to get the lead out. (You're going to have to supply the pencil. Sorry.)
Maybe you want chalk, like the sort offered by Kansas and North Carolina. The Jayhawks, Spartans, and Tar Heels have talented, deep rosters and enough experience to be reliable bets to advance deep into March.
Maybe you want to ride Kentucky to the Final Four again, a year after John Calipari's thoroughbreds had arguably the best run to college basketball's most storied stage in the sport's history. These Wildcats are led by the diminutive, dynamic Tyler Ulis, scorer extraordinaire Jamal Murray, and the suddenly special Skal Labissiere — and while they're not nearly as formidable as their predecessors, they've been playing better ball of late than virtually anyone in the country.
Or maybe you want a non-traditional horse to back. Xavier's really good this year! So is Oregon, which hasn't made a Final Four since winning the first NCAA Tournament in 1939. Gonzaga's talented, too! Either there are no bad choices, or they're all bad choices. Have some fun with it.
Print one. Print five. Print dozens, because that might be the only way you end up with enough brackets to even hit one of the Final Four this year.
But be sure to revel in those 68 teams on the bracket being accurate. You may not get many more lines right.
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