NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge - Final Update

The 2nd Annual Bucket Squad Sports Reports (Your #1 Source for All Things Sports) Mega March Madness Matchup Monstrosity has officially come to a close as the NCAA Tournament crowned a 2023 national champion on Monday night.

In a tournament that was filled with thrilling finishes, astonishing upsets, and improbable outcomes, last night's championship game was a direct antithesis to the first 62 games of March Madness.  The 4-seeded UConn Huskies successfully closed out one of the most dominant tournament runs in college basketball history with a 76-59 win over the 5-seeded San Diego State Aztecs in a game that was never all that close.

UConn fell just 10 points shy of breaking the record for largest point differential throughout an NCAA Tournament, which was set by Kentucky in the 1995-96 season at 128 points.  UConn's 16-point championship victory didn't even fall in the top three of their win margins for their six tournament games.  Here are their margins for all of them:

• Round 1 vs. (13) Iona: 24 points
• Round 2 vs. (5) Saint Mary's: 15 points
• Sweet 16 vs. (8) Arkansas: 23 points
• Elite 8 vs. (3) Gonzaga: 28 points
• Final 4 vs. (5) Miami: 13 points
• Championship vs. (5) San Diego State: 16 points

The Huskies collect their fifth national championship in school history, all occurring in the last 24 years.  They've firmly established themselves as a college basketball blue blood in my opinion, as they've won those five championships with three different coaches.  It is the most titles won by any team in that time period.  (Duke and North Carolina are tied for 2nd in that span with three championships each.)

More important than the championship game itself was the Mega March Madness Matchup Monstrosity, the tournament bracket challenge that everyone came here for.  While the challenge had already been decided after (5) Miami defeated (2) Texas in the Elite 8, I'd like to provide a brief analysis of how everyone who participated in this year's BSSR bracket challenge performed.

First, I'd like to congratulate Elise C. on winning the challenge under the unbelievably prophetic bracket username, "winning bracket."  I wrote about her sophisticated method for selecting her teams in the last update, but I'll briefly recap it in case you missed it.  She picked each matchup based on "mascots and vibes," though it worked out for her in the end.   She was the only one who got two Final Four teams correct, taking Miami because "hurricanes destroy everything" and UConn because she thinks huskies are very cute.  Regardless of how she did it, she earned the grand prize of $100.  She will use the money to attend graduate school, something she otherwise would never have been able to afford without taking out exorbitant school loans at highly unreasonable interest rates.  You can see below how thrilled she was to finally make her higher education dreams come true.

Now to discuss the rest of our performances in the bracket challenge.  As I'm sure you all know, this was probably the hardest NCAA Tournament to predict of all time.  We all knew it would be going in, as there were never any real clear-cut favorites who had dominated in the regular season.  As a result, UConn became the first 4-seed to win it all since Arizona in 1997, and they were the lowest seeded team to win the title since 2014's 7-seeded Huskies.

With that said, here are the total results from all seven participants of this year's tournament challenge.

Amazingly, only two of our seven entrants got any Final Four teams correct, and winning bracket was the only one who got more than one right.  Five people also had only two or fewer Elite Eight teams in their brackets.  In the end, no one in our bracket challenge picked either UConn or San Diego State to make the championship.

So, that brings the 2nd Annual BSSRMMMMM to a close.  We've added another member to the exclusive Mega March Madness Matchup Monstrosity Hall of Champions, which has grown to a population of two.

Thank you to everyone who entered and followed along this NCAA Tournament.  Take advantage of another chance to etch your name in the BSSR history books next March when this challenge comes back around for the third time.

We'll experience a bit of a dead period from now until football season begins, but check back in the fall when the five BSSR experts will pick every SEC football game of the season, and I will give my favorite betting plays for each week of the NFL season.  I had a 58.5% win percentage in 2022, so you don't want to miss a chance at free money in 2023.

Thank you from everyone at Bucket Squad Sports Reports (Your #1 Source for All Things Sports) and for continuing to support the internet's most trusted and respected sports website.

Written by Nick Swatson