Bracket of Brackets

It's strange how the 72 hours (give or take) between Selection Sunday and the tip of the first first second-round game of the NCAA tournament turns me from a passive college basketball follower to a freakish fan. Some of it is the love of sport and watching someone get named the Best for that particular year. But if I know anything about myself, I also know that I'm a slave to organization matchups.

In short, I love me some brackets.

I know it's not just me. Wanting to rank the best of something in a neat one-on-one matchup-style, single-elimination tournament is inherently human. Steve Rushin had a great piece on it in a recent Sports Illustrated. In fact, it is so ingrained in our DNA that a quick Google search found countless brackets - not just on basketball, but on absolutely anything, from the kind of fantastic (sports movies) to the insane (curse words). So I present the Bracket of Brackets: 16 different brackets, each ranking its own special something. This is the first round, so I urge you to vote in the comments or on Facebook and in a couple days, I will narrow it down. What's the best bracket of them all? You decide!

(Full disclosure: After I decided to do this but before I had finished gathering my various brackets, I discovered that The Atlantic Wire had done something similar, but at that point, I was too far gone. Oh well. Great minds, yadda-yadda-yadda.)

First Round

1. NCAA Tournament

 
I mean, obviously. It's the thing that brought us all here in the first place. Sixty-four 68 teams of 18-to-22(ish) year olds vying to be the best basketball team out of the entire Division I. The opportunity for a tiny upstart or non-basketball specialists ('sup, Harvard!) to shock some practically-professional-already players from State U? Fantastic stuff! It's the original, so it's got to be No. 1.

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16. Tournament of Brackets

Almost as meta as a bracket of brackets, here we have a tournament of different types of brackets, courtesy of The New Yorker. Do you prefer plain old lines or two-toned boxes? Are you a colored bars fan or do you go for the fancy two-tone lozenges? The world is your oyster!
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2. Beer Dance

Unfortunately, The Street opted not to resurrect last year's Beer Dance, where 14 craft beers battled for thirst-quenching supremacy. Still, a year old or not, they get points for A) keeping it to the crafties, rather than boring old Bud and Coors and B) keeping it widespread, with beers from Portland to Boston and  everywhere in between.

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15. Tournament of Books

Each year, the Morning News, with a sponsorship from Barnes & Nobles' Nook e-reader, has the previous year's best fiction books duke it out until only one reigns supreme. As a librarian, I'm actually legally obligated to include this, and it gets points for being perhaps the most organized of all the brackets (including the NCAA one). Still, I know I'm a special brand of nerdy, which is why it got such a low seed.
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3. Ultimate Curse Word Bracket

 
Deadspin, being the greatest thing of all time, especially during tournament season, has devised a battle royale of swearwords. There are highlights. There are lowlights. You will find yourself aghast that your favorite swear somehow got a five seed. Just, whatever you do, don't open this bracket in mixed company.

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14. Fug Madness

What's better than organizationally ranking teams/people/phrases/anything at all and then eliminating one by one until you have an ultimate winner? Doing all that but with SNARK! Go Fug Yourself, a celebrity fashion website that's as awful as its name implies, has organized all the best celebrity miscues of the past year for your voting pleasure. Bonus points for naming the regions after Cher, Madonna, Bjork and Charro.
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4. Best Sports Movie

CBS Sports has come up with 64 sports movies, divided by their emphasis on baseball, basketball, football and other (i.e. hockey, boxing, golf, etc.). They've got all the ones you would expect to see, although there is some questionable seeding (Jerry Maguire the No. 1 in the football region over Rudy?!). Because this is from CBS Sports, it even comes with overanalysis from "experts." You can decide whether that's a pro or a con.

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13. Greatest Baseball Team of All Time

 (Note: The bracket is bigger than this but they don't have it all in one spot.) Bleacher Report has ranked the 32 greatest baseball teams in the history of the game. It's pretty self-explanatory.

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5. Most Hated College Basketball Player of the Past 30 Years

The only thing better than rooting for the underdog of your choice is rooting AGAINST that smarmy jerk from whatever school you hate year after year. (This year, it's Marshall Henderson. And not just for me, but for America.) If you love rooting against people/teams as much as you love rooting for them, Grantland has the bracket for you. (Bonus points: The regions are divided by decades...except for that one region that is entirely devoted to Duke.)

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12. Best College Eats

You can't watch an NCAA tournament game without eating something that will harden your arteries in .05 seconds and that goes double if you actually attend college yourself. What should be on the menu of your viewing party? Here are some ideas.
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6. Burger Bracketology

If you do not happen to be a college student and have to settle for various fast and not-so-fast foods for your unhealthy March diet, you'll probably wind up at one or more of these places. Somehow, I've only eaten at two of them, which makes me sad for myself. Thank goodness this tournament lasts a couple more weeks.

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11. Best TV Couple

 
Entertainment Weekly is still finalizing this bracket, which means that when you vote on it, it will be HOT OFF THE PRESS. The fact that they're all but ensuring at least one showing by Lost's Sawyer means I'm game. And guessing who might make the field is almost as exciting as Selection Sunday. Cory and Topanga? Joni and Chachi? Troy and Abed? The possibilities are endless!
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7. Best Sitcom of the Past 30 Years

Vulture counted down the top sitcoms of the past 30 years. There are a couple of downsides here: 1) For whatever reason, they decided to hold this bracket a full month before official bracket season is recognized in America. It's like celebrating Christmas in November or Independence Day on June 4. IT'S NOT EVEN FLAG DAY YET, PEOPLE. 2) The winners were decided by the people; they were determined by "all-star writers." Please. Still, it's ranking TV sitcoms and Roseanne makes it to the Final Four, so obviously it's amazing.

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10. MTV's Musical March Madness

Musical March Madness is MTV's opportunity to rank the top 64 bands whose music videos they play whose music videos they would play if they weren't too busy showing reruns of True Life: I Have Embarrassing Parents 2. I like that this has become an annual tradition and I'm intrigued/confused by their combination of the hottest artists of the year (Mumford and Sons, Paramore, fun.) and people who, I suppose they may have done something in 2012, but who haven't been on my radar for the entirety of the Obama administration (Metallica, Linkin Park, No Doubt). 

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8. Ultimate NFL Mascot

With its second entry, Bleacher Report is officially the Big 10 of the Bracket of Brackets. I'm sorry - I'm a sucker for mascots. 

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9. Animal March Madness

It's only right that the first opponents the fake animals will face are real ones. AND LOOKIT HOW PRECIOUS THIS SECOND-ROUND MATCHUP IS. 

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And that's it. Feel free to comment your votes for the first round, or send them to me via Facebook or Twitter (@kafvautour) or telepathy or whatever works. Because if you don't, then I'll just pick what I like the best and it will be otters for the win!