NCAA bracket 2016: Kansas leads March Madness field

We’ve done this before, and it was a complete failure. We looked at the best baseball players to come from each school in the 2014 NCAA Tournament, and Arizona State did not win because of residual Barry Bonds dust. Mea culpa.

So we should try again, but do it better.

There are precious few schools that actually have a chance of winning the NCAA Tournament. Sure, in a literal sense they all do, but c’mon. The clock always seems to strike midnight for the best Cinderella and ultimately we’re left with the best programs. Good teams come and go, but elite alumni are forever. This is truly a bracket where everyone has a chance.

I exhaustively poured over the “notable alumni” lists for every school in the 2016 tournament and picked who I thought was the best famous person to represent his or her school. This was not an easy task. Look up Maryland, for example. You need to pick between Jim Henson and Larry David. These decisions were brutal. Without further ado, here’s the 2016 NCAA Tournament bracket based on famous alumni.

President Barack Obama has the Kansas Jayhawks cutting down the nets with a win over North Carolina in the final NCAA bracket of his presidency. He’s known for mostly picking chalk, but there were a couple of surprises this year.

ESPN’s Andy Katz asked the president why he tends to pick favorites over risking Cinderellas and Obama responded, saying he’s “Just not knowledgeable enough of all the teams these days” to pick some of the riskier prospects in the bracket. He noted that while he doesn’t always have the top picks right, that typically one of the top four teams winds up at least contending for the national championship.

The NCAA Tournament is officially underway, but it’s probably not too late to fill out a bracket if you haven’t already. Here’s SB Nation’s printable bracket for March Madness this year, ready for the presses.

Tuesday night gave us the first taste of this year’s Big Dance, with First Four contests in Dayton, Ohio. Florida Gulf Coast beat Fairleigh Dickinson in the first game, and Wichita State beat Vanderbilt in the second. The winners are on to the 64-team portion of the tournament, ahead of two more First Four games Wednesday night.

St. Bonaventure had been one of the year’s best stories, but the A-10’s best team was left out in the cold on Selection Sunday. The league’s commissioner is not happy.

52 of 59 bracketologists projected the Bonnies to make the tournament, while 0 of 59 thought Tulsa would get in. Looks like the commissioner definitely has a case.

Calipari later went on ESPN to voice his frustrations on the timing of the tournament final, saying that “they already picked the [seeding] before we play.”

He later seemed to brush the annoyance aside and pointed out the other times he has had his back against the wall during the tournament, noting all that other times he has succeeded regardless of an unfair situation.

Judging from the initial response, it appear that the consensus view on the 2016 Selection Committee’s performance falls much closer to the latter extreme. Why? Well, let’s look at the five items most worthy of discussion when it comes to the bracket for the current installment of the big dance.

There’s never going to be complete agreement when it comes to the final handful of teams to squeak into the field of 68, but 2016 might be the first year where we’ve seen complete disagreement.

Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Oregon highlight this year’s NCAA Tournament field as their regions’ top seeds. The Jayhawks, Tarheels and Ducks won their respective conference tournaments, while the Cavaliers lost to UNC in the ACC Tournament final Saturday night.

64 other Big Dance bound teams join the No. 1 seeds for a shot at the Final Four in Houston. The tournament commences March 15 and 16 with the First Four round in Dayton, Ohio. The round of 64 proper then tips off March 17 and 18, and elimination rounds continue until the Final Four on April 2 and the championship game April 4.

Check out the full NCAA Tournament bracket

Touchscreens are supposed to make our lives easier, like everything in the future. No one told us that Charles Barkley was going to be in the future, though. We clearly forgot to account for that, because man, no matter what he did, Chuck could NOT figure that screen out for the life of him.

Even when he did make his selections, all Barkley selected was that all eight favorites would beat their lower seeds. Strong analysis, there. And then there’s this cluster on the screen for the Sweet Sixteen that I still don’t totally understand.

The Virginia Cavaliers’ No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region is their second in three years under Tony Bennett, and might help them reach their first Final Four since the days of Ralph Sampson — and their first Elite Eight since 1995. Virginia went unbeaten at home in the 2015-16 season, and only lost to ACC foes and NCAA near-miss George Washington, but the Cavs are likely a No. 1 seed because of back-to-back non-conference wins over Villanova and West Virginia and finishing a game behind North Carolina in the ACC.

Greatest Cinderella: Is it the NC State Wolfpack or Butler Bulldogs?

FULL 2016 NCAA TOURNAMENT PRINTABLE BRACKET

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