The Loop

The Loop's not-so-expert 2019 March Madness bracket

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The NCAA Tournament is here, and with it a carefully primped and prepped parade of "expert" brackets engineered in labs by men in rubber gloves with biochemistry degrees. You'll pour over these for hours—days even—until your eyes are crossed and your scrolling finger sore, but try as you might, your bracket will never live up to its studio-grade counterparts. There's just a little too much scribbling and a little too much emotion—too much crippling self-doubt and counter-productive tinkering. By the time you finally settle on a champ at 11:59 a.m. on Thursday morning, chances are your bracket will look more like a Jackson Pollock than the field of 64; a rainbow splatter of blood, ink, tears, and perhaps even other bodily fluids. So in that spirit, we here at The Loop decided to unveil our very own Not-So-Expert Bracket**, a show of solidarity with the clueless college basketball masses and a friendly reminder that losing to Jeff the IT guy year-in, year-out is supposed to be, above all else, fun. Let chaos reign.

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FIRST FOUR

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If you watched these, you came to the wrong place. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, nerd.

EAST REGION

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Assuming Zion's sneakers don't turn into hand grenades, we see presumptive favorite Duke running riot all the way to the Final Four. The rest of the region is a dogfight, however, so don't be afraid to bust out the rock-paper-scissors if you have to. P.S. Happy birthday, Becks!

WEST REGION

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In the West, we encounter our first 12-5 upset of the tourney courtesy of certain lottery pick Oh Ja Ja Morant and Murray State. Elsewhere, Ohio State fans are forced to choose between pride and logic (you can never escape the human condition, folks) while Not Kentucky looks poised for a deep run.

SOUTH REGION

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A wide-open region full of underachieving blue blood heavyweights, the South is the Ivy league waitlist of regions this year. Watch out for the 13-seed UC Irvine Anteaters for no other reason than because they're called the freaking Anteaters.

MIDWEST REGION

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The Midwest Region puts North Carolina and Kentucky on an Elite Eight collision course and SONOFAB*TCH you just realized that wasn't actually Kentucky in the West.

FINAL FOUR

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One seed, one seed, one seed. You get the picture. Sorry Cinderella, but if we lose to Jeff again, there's no telling what could happen.

AND THE CHAMPION IS (DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!!)

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Dook The Anteaters of UC Irvine! WOOOO! SUCK IT, JEFF!

** The Loop is not responsible for money lost in the 2019 NCAA Tournament by following our dumbass bracket.