Picking March Madness 2018 based on nothing but the best jerseys

I have gone through every matchup in the 2018 NCAA tournament to determine the best college basketball jersey, and honestly, these picks didn’t turn out that bad. OK, this bracket is not great, and you probably won’t win with it. But it’s gonna look good. And that’s all that matters.

The entire bracket can be found at the end of the post but here are the highlights of the best matchups throughout the tourney.

Kentucky and Arizona met up in the second round, which was highly unfair. This could have been an Elite 8 matchup at least. Maybe even Final Four. It’s sad we had to see Arizona go down this soon. Kentucky’s look is just too clean though.

Miami went on a nice little run to start the tourney, breezing past Loyola and Tennessee, to meet up with Texas in the Sweet 16. Texas did the same, upsetting seven-seed Nevada and two-seed Cincinnati. But the Longhorns’ run came to halt when put up the against the ever-incredible white jerseys from Miami.

An extremely tough matchup in the Elite 8. Both teams had handled other solid jerseys with ease. Miami brought out its orange to try and take down the checkers, but fell ever so short.

Kentucky escapes what is maybe the toughest jersey bracket of the entire tournament.

Villanova easily made it out of the first round only to see a tough Bama jersey. Alabama honestly put up a good fight with this look. If Villanova wasn’t so clean with the baby blue and the round neckline, this could have been a huge upset. Nova at the buzzer.

UPSET ALERT! Sorry, Purdue. Those aren’t gonna work.

Butler went back to the more traditional look for the Sweet 16, allowing that Gator orange-and-blue to slide right on past into the Elite 8. You need a little luck in the tournament, and Florida gets it here.

Now Florida is rolling. Villanova might as well have been a 16-seed when Florida brought out the orange and black.

The orange with the black gator print down the side is too much for anyone in the East bracket to overcome.

Fair warning that the Midwest region did not produce the best selection of jerseys, but we must find a winner, those are the rules.

Oh, I do love these Iona jerseys. I really do. I just can’t let that Duke blue go down ... yet.

After Kansas beat Pennsylvania in the first round and Seton Hall took NC State, it set up Kansas for a near upset before even making it to the Sweet 16. The cursive Seton Hall script was almost enough to win, but the red accent on the KU jersey kept it classic enough to move on.

Clemson quietly got past New Mexico State and Charleston to meet up with Kansas in the Sweet 16, and literally all it took to take down the Jayhawks was some color and tiger stripes. For what it’s worth, I do love the Clemson orange and the gradient of the stripes. It just wasn’t gonna take much to beat Kansas, who wasn’t trying.

After Iona, Duke breezed past Rhode Island and Bucknell, but Clemson? CLEMSON IS NOW MAKING A RUN. These jerseys are just clean. That’s all there is to it. (And we can’t let Duke win this.)

The real reason I let Clemson get this far: they have a secret weapon uniform with a huge tiger paw and tiger stripes.

For a 2-10 matchup against a legendary jersey, I really have to give Providence some credit here. No they didn’t win, but the the effort was strong.

Houston is a six seed so it’s hard to call them a true Cinderella, but I think it would be hard to find anyone who saw the run they went on. Given they aren’t in a power conference and they went against some true classics, they’re definitely the darling and the team we weren’t expecting. These black Houston jerseys go so hard, they took down Michigan AND North Carolina.

The Cougars had an incredible run. They really did. But they met their match against Xavier. They should be proud of their appearance in the Elite 8.

A number 1 seed has made it through! I’m a sucker for the classic baby blue.

The Final Four will see Xavier (1) vs. Kentucky (5) and Clemson (5) vs. Florida (6). Florida wins in a blowout, while Kentucky squeaks by against Xavier to set up a beautiful (literally) championship game.

A No. 5 and No. 6 seed in the final game? Perfect. The championship game between Kentucky and Florida is so aesthetically pleasing. I want to be extremely clear I am from Indiana and cheer only for the Indiana State Sycamores (Larry Bird is the GOAT) so there is no SEC bias here. These are the best jerseys.

It’s really pretty.

But we can only have one winner ... and you know who it is.

I love these so much. The PK80s (as they are officially called) are basic yet so, so good. Florida going away from the traditional blue and throwing in black is what makes the magic here. Then the gator print down the side puts its over the edge. Congrats to these beautiful jerseys and I hope Florida wears them every single game.

It’s still Florida. But I’ll listen to other opinions.