Even though the really important Final Four has already been decided, the Division 1 NCAA basketball championship starts this week, which means it’s time to fill out your championship brackets. And so, as usual, I present the guaranteed-can’t-miss-sure-thing method of picking the winner based on the rankings of Ph.D. programs in physics (excerpt displayed; click for the full bracket):
OK, maybe there are a few bugs yet to be worked out with this method…
Just glad to see BYU makes it to the sweet 16. 🙂
Any system that pits a 13 seeded team against a 15 in the final match-up is clearly a keeper.
Tough early-round matchups for Texas, Syracuse, Ohio State. The committee that did the seedings obviously has a lot to answer for.
What ranking are you using? The long-awaited new “ranking” didn’t assign actual numerical ranks to schools.
Having grown up in Louisville, my first reaction to this was “wow, who does U of L beat in physics,” only to see that it was another Morehead State, another KY public school which focuses more on undergraduate education.
What would the Final Four be like if Harvard had won that playoff?
I’ve always been a fan of this annual moment of silliness. I tried to do a version for immunology or microbiology programs, but not enough schools have them. So I did NCAA predictions by total NIH funding. BYU also reaches the Sweet Sixteen, but they’re in a weak region.