Bracketology

With the teams set on the road to Moscow in the Champions League, Wh00t Liverpool. It poses an interesting question, “Is it time to finally start caring about the UEFA Cup?”. The UEFA Cup, for anyone who might not know, is the little brother of the Champions League. The UEFA Cup consists of people knocked out of the group stage of the Champions League, and pretty much anyone else who finished a respectable position in their domestic league. At the beginning of the competition there are just to many teams to care, I can only assume that even the teams themselves feel this way. And if you don’t have a team in the competition, the next couple of rounds can seem a bit boring with so many teams involved. But after tomorrow, the quarterfinals will be set, and many of the crap clubs in Europe will have been weeded out, making the UEFA Cup worth watching. It also helps to make a friendly wager about the out come of the competition.




March Madness is right around the corner, which means its time for some bracketology. There are four easy ways to pick your brackets:

Be Informed.
Some people have been watching NCAA Division I intently all year, and know how teams have preformed. These people will make their decisions based on, “how tough _____ conference has been”, and “what teams have had better quality wins over tougher teams”. You’ll have to know what teams have been playing well, who’s injured, who’s been playing “tough” teams and who’s been playing easy teams. Hint: The ACC is a tough conference, and the Big 12 is over rated.

Go With What You Know.
Some people do quite well when picking brackets by just going with information that they know like; where they went to school, what teams are local, where their friends went to school, and where national landmarks are. This option usually suits uninformed women better than men, but has produced some successful results.

Mascot Theory 101.
Some people resort to letting the mascots duke it out, literally. When facing tough picks, some people will resort to making their decision based on which mascot would win if the two mascots were fighting. This technique is very risky and could backfire very easily, it is not a recommended way to make your picks.

Rankings.
Many people don’t like to bother with guesswork, when there is money involved. In that case just use the bracket rankings. Those teams were ranked that way for a reason, that’s why they call it an upset, when a lower team beats a higher ranked team, because its unexpected. Your “safest” bet is always picking according to ranking, the odds are always in your favor when you go by rank.