Testing the best (and worst) ways to pick your NCAA tournament bracket

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - As millions scramble to fill out their March Madness, the real issue fans have is trying to figure out the best way to come up with their winning team.

Are the advances in AI ready to tackle your bracket, or is it best to leave it up to chance?

The answers...are probably not surprising!

When asked to create a “perfect March Madness bracket”, ChatGPT initially delivered strong commentary, and picked Duke as its winner. However, when asked to turn that data into an image, it changed its answer to Arizona, along with lots of garbled text.

Next up, the annual “pick the winner by favorite school color”. The final four, as determined by the WDBJ newsroom: Louisville (Red), Clemson (orange), Miami (Orange/Green), or Hawai’i (Green/white). As seen on the “Hometown Sports Huddle” on WDBJ+, the Hawai’l Warriors are taking home the trophy! (Well, maybe not!)

Finally, it was a good old fashioned coin flip! One matchup at a time, we flipped a coin. Heads, the top team on the bracket moved on. Tails, the lower team on the bracket. That produced an even more unlikely scenario, with Northern Iowa and Santa Clara meeting for the national championship, and the Panthers of Northern Iowa taking that “One Shining Moment”! No disrespect to either team, but that’s probably not happening either.

So what’s the best solution? Trusting your gut. NCAA.com writer Andy Wittry says the average number of upsets in any one tournament is around 7 to 8. One popular method recognized by “bracketologists” is to start your picks with the national champion first, then work backwards. That way, you get the result your head tells you is right, before your emotions start playing into your picks.

Good luck this tournament, and remember, the odds of a perfect bracket are one in nine quintillion. That’s a lot of zeroes at the end of that. You’re going to make mistakes, so have fun, expect to get your bracket busted, and enjoy the ride!