How to Let Your Toddler Complete Your NCAA Basketball Bracket

Lets face it, your picks for the past NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket probably haven't fared all to well in years past. Sure you studied the RPI, learned the finer details of bracketology, and watched Digger Phelps until your eyes glazed over. Yet each year you still find yourself looking for a sweet sixteen second chance bracket pool after the end of Friday's games.

Why not mix it up a little this year and try my unproven and highly ineffective method for winning your office NCAA Men's basketball bracket pool. You ready for this? I let my two year old pick the winner of each game. Last year she finished well ahead of my "expert" picks. Even more fun was informing the other bracket pool players that they were being beaten by a two year old.

Read on and I will show you how to win your NCAA basketball bracket pool and have fun doing it. Okay, you probably aren't going to win, but you will have fun. Plus the wife will be much more interested knowing little junior has a stake in the tournament pool.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Color Printer
• Paper
• Scissors
• Pen
• NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket

1. 
    
   NCAA Logos

   Once the 64 team men's basketball field is announced, find a good website previewing each of the opening game's match ups. Try Yahoo Sports, ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS Sportsline, etc. The preview of each of the tournament games will be accompanied by a color graphic of that basketball team's mascot. Try to find a NCAA Tournament preview page with all of the basketball team's logos. Print these pages off.

2. 
    

   Now using your scissors, cut each logo out into nice little squares. If your little one is craft ready, let them help. If the kid is under the age of two this is probably a bad idea, as he will be prone to ingest the pretty little logos. And by all means, do not let the kid run with the scissors. That will likely put a quick end to the whole project.

3. 
    
   Pick a Winner

   By this point you will have created a tidy little color cut out of each NCAA Men's basketball team playing in the tournament. Using your NCAA bracket, organize the logos into groups of two that match each opening round game. Keep your tournament bracket and pencil/pen handy.
   
   Sit your little helper near by in the highchair or booster seat. Begin to run through each opening tournament game one at a time. Hold up each basketball team's logo so your little expert can see them. Encourage him to pick one. I personally like to allow my kid to pick the winner regardless. But lets face it, good parenting is about helping our children make good choices. If Junior is trying to pick Mount St. Mary's over UNC, now may be the time for some parental guidance. Don't get carried away being too helpful, that takes away all of the fun. However, when it comes to 16 seeds, I say be ready to step in.
   
   As each basketball game winner is selected, pencil in the choice on to your paper tournament bracket.

4. 
    
   NCAA Basketball Expert

   As each winner for the opening round tournament game is chosen, pair them up with their next round opponent. Continue this process until you have completed your NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament bracket.
   
   You may be surprised how good the little genius did at picking tournament game winners. Even if the overall bracket appears a bit skewed, don't be surprised if this bracket beats yours! I promise it will beat somebody in your basketball pool and that is worth it's weight in gold.

[veryirie]

on 4/23/2009 My moneys on the kid in this case. Fun and well done!

[ho1969]

on 3/17/2009 Great article and certainly as good a chance of winning as most of my educated guesses. 5* and a recommend.