Mascots. Team colors. Coolest sound college cities. A good feeling. These are just a few of the strategies kids around the country are using to pick their March Madness bracket winners, as they watch college basketball men’s and women’s NCAA teams advance through the well-known tournament throughout the month.
It’s been 10 years since 12-year-old Sam Holtz tied for first on ESPN’s tournament challenge for the men’s bracket, out of more than 11 and a half million entries. Like many kids, he didn’t do a deep research dive into team statistics. In fact, he filled it out in five minutes. People are still asking how he did it a decade later, he shared on TikTok. The NCAA notes just how ridiculously rare it is to fill out a perfect bracket, whether you are guessing based on the funniest-looking mascot or using actual basketball intel:
- 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (if you just guess or flip a coin)
- 1 in 120.2 billion (if you know a little something about basketball)
Though most kids won’t see that level of success — nor will most adults — we talked to families who are super impressed by their kids schooling them on the challenge of choosing upsets, expected victories, and that elusive perfect final four.
Mascots Rule
Maleah Legg is a 13-year-old in North Carolina, who has been filling out brackets with, and against, her dad Ryan Pritt for multiple years. There’s just one problem. He’s an expert in all things sports, having been a sports reporter, and now works at a Motorsports company. Maleah, on the other hand, used to play soccer, has never played basketball, and wants to be a baker when she grows up. But that hasn’t stopped her from dominating at a good bracket challenge.
Pritt shares she placed fourth in a men’s bracket competition he entered her into last year, of 100 adults, made up of family friends and acquaintances. “I was interested in it because me and dad had made a bet,” she says. In fact, through the years, they’ve made a few bets. The first year, she said he’d have to eat sushi, a food he didn’t like, if she won. If he won, she’d have to clean his car. Let’s just say he had to try that sushi, and now is a big fan.
“Usually I look up or ask my dad what the mascot is, and pick based off the mascot, colors or what the number is,” she says. Unfortunately, the only year Legg lost to her dad, she’d bet on getting a kitten if she won.
Legg picked Auburn to go all the way this year. Why? “They were No. 1 and I liked the name of it,” she says. “It sounds like one of my friend’s names, Aubrey.” This year, if she wins again, she gets to pick where they go out to dinner on the family’s vacation.
Former sports reporter Ryan Pritt is used to being beaten by his 13-year-old daughter, Maleah.
Pritt shares that it’s been a bigger lesson on “luck versus skill” along with a bonding experience. “I was covering the Big 12 [as a journalist] at the time,” he says. “I had an all-conference vote and an AP all-American vote, so I was really plugged in. I don’t think she’d ever watched a basketball game before. As the games went on [and she kept winning] it kind of went from shock to joy.”
Pritt even covered one of his daughter’s biggest upsets. “I literally got to see her crush me in person,” he says, “and she’s continued to do it every year.”
Pritt says Legg is already schooling his bracket, and has six of her Elite 8 remaining, along with all of her final four picks. “Me, not so much,” he says. He jokes that board game nights at their house “aren’t pretty” as a competitive family, and Legg loves it when she beats him at anything.
Starting Young
Jaime Cohen, parent of 4-year-old and 7-year-old boys from Hoboken, NJ, started her kids young filling out the men’s brackets this year.
“My husband printed them out for the four of us the day before the tournament began and we sat down with them after dinner,” she says. “He explained who each team was, how they were ranked and pulled up the team profiles on ESPN.com.”
“Our youngest made his picks according to the team colors — with his favorites being blue and red,” she adds. “He did have some successful picks with his favorite color strategy. He predicted the first round upsets Creighton and McNeese because their team’s color is blue.”
Three of his “red like Spider-Man” picks for the Final Four are still in contention, Cohen shares, including Maryland, Texas Tech and Houston, and he has Maryland vs Houston in the Finals, with Houston winning the championship. His first bracket at the young age of 4 has blown many adults’ brackets out of the water.
“After a few consecutive ‘blue’ picks, his 7-year-old brother explained, ‘It doesn’t depend on the color, it depends on the skill!’” she says. Her 7-year-old used team ranking, but also cool names and mascots. “He liked Robert Morris and McNeese.”
Cohen says all three of the guys in her house are looking forward to “boys night” during the next round of games…while she heads to yoga.
Two Tournaments
Conz Preti, a Portland mom of three kids under 7, says her work colleagues decided to do a men’s and a women’s bracket this year. But, since she usually chooses based on the state or logo, she had an equal strategy learning curve for both brackets. She worked on brackets with her family: “We went by colors. I would read the names of the teams and they would ask what color uniform/logo they had, and choose that way,” she says.
Then, as Preti’s family watches the games together, her kids get excited when their “color” is winning a game. “Interestingly, I’m doing way better in the women’s bracket than the men’s,” she says. “I also started watching the women’s games and got totally hooked.”
How to Get the Kids Involved
These kids won’t tell your kids to read the stats. Instead, they have more creative tactics. Parents can also create some fun activities around bracket guessing for kids.
- Print the pics. Toddlers and preschoolers can chime in if you show them mascot pictures, one family shows on TikTok. But if you do, prepare to feel like this mom who says, “I guess I should have listened” to her young kid.
- Don’t be afraid to be totally random. Can’t decide who to pick for your own bracket? Just start reading teams to your toddler for the most random bracket ever, one dad proves.
- Learn some numbers. “My advice is to look at the [seeds] — the smaller the number the better the chances are,” Legg says. “And the mascots — that’s the biggest thing.” She especially favors teams that are blue and white, her favorite colors. Older kids can learn more about the actual odds of upsets, and other more intentional strategies from sports analysts.
- Chat about basic basketball rules,: Legg has learned quite a bit from working on brackets, including that there are four quarters in basketball, not “two like football.” “I learned scores get really, really high — like really high sometimes, and there are a lot more things you can do other than just running and shooting the ball.”
- Double the chances. Fill out both a men’s and women’s bracket, for even more competition. Both tournaments hit the Sweet 16 round in late March, with the Final Four and National Championship games in early April.
- Swap teams for other fun tournament options: Pinterest is full of fast food, animals, and Disney movie bracket-style tournaments if kids want to get in on the fun minus, well, the basketball.
Leave it to the kids’ randomness and successful predicting to remind the grownups in leagues around the country — it’s just a game.
Alexandra Frost is a Cincinnati-based freelance journalist and content marketing writer, focusing on health and wellness, parenting, education, and lifestyle. She has been published in the Atlantic, Glamour, Today’s Parent, Reader’s Digest, Consumer Reports, Women’s Health, and National Geographic. She spends her “free” time with her five kids under age 8, and testing lots of products. To connect or read more of her work please visit alexandra-frost.com or follow her on social media: Twitter Instagram Linked In.
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