Rando Bracket Selection: Sweet Sixteen Round

In order to randomize the Sweet Sixteen, we thought we’d use the Chinese horoscope characters: Ox, Rat, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.

We will use coach’s birth years in this round but anyone who is an Ox gets advanced automatically because this is, after all, the Year of the Ox, and the Ox is a freakin’ cool animal.

Here’s the order of descent we chose to determine who moves on.

Dragon, Tiger, Horse, Dog, Monkey, Rooster, Rabbit, Sheep, Pig

Rats and snakes lose.

In case of a tie, we’ll use the first letter of the school’s president to break it. We caught a couple of errors but since the goal is to thoroughly randomize, anymore just help achieve the goal.

Help us, oh mighty and trustworthy Wikipedia!

• Lon Kruger, 1952 vs. Greg McDermott, 1964. Kruger is a Dragon and so is McDermott. Well that’s a surprise out of the gate. OU president then? Joseph Harroz, Jr. And Creighton? Daniel S. Hendrickson. So Creighton is in the Elite Eight. Who would have dreamed it?
• Bill Self, 1962 vs. Fran McCaffery: Tiger vs. Pig. Kansas moves on.
• Juwan Howard, 1973 vs. Patrick Ewing, 1962: Ox vs. Horse. Thanks for playing, Georgetown.
• Shaka Smart , 1977 vs. Danny Hurley, 1973: Snake vs. Ox. Hurley gets the bonus! See ya, Texas.
• Greg Gard, 1970 vs. Matt Painter, 1970: both Dogs. Wisconsin Chancellor: Rebecca Blank. Purdue President: Mitch Daniels. Fortunately for the Badgers, it’s a fairly short trip home. Thanks for participating!
• Mike Young, 1963 vs. Matt Langel, 1977: Rabbit vs. Sheep. Virginia Tech lives!
• Brad Underwood, 1963 vs. Wayne Tinkle, 1966: Rabbit vs, Horse. Nice run, OSU.
• Bob Huggins, 1953 vs. Tad Boyle, 1963: Snake vs. Rabbit. Huggy Bear heads back home.

So the Elite Eight is now randomized:

• West: Creighton vs. Kansas
• East: Michigan vs. UConn
• South: Purdue vs. Virginia Tech
• Midwest: Illinois vs. Cleveland State

From here, having gotten pretty random, we’ll just use our trusty coin flip app to get to the Final Four. And here we go:

• Creighton vs. Michigan. Scott Rich is thrilled!
• Virginia Tech vs. Cleveland State. The Hokies carry the ACC banner back to the championship game!

And now for the winner between Michigan and Virginia Tech. Coin flip app says Virginia Tech as Mike Young ceils his reputation as a coaching savant. Now we’ll see how it all pans out.