Ah, March Madness. For those who have followed and obsessed over the annual NCAA basketball tournament for years, names like Bryce Drew and Lorenzo Charles are every bit as legendary as Michael Jordan and Tim Duncan. Moments like Fred Brown accidentally passing to James Worthy or Chris Webber calling “The Timeout” are every bit as harrowing to recall as that baseball going through Bill Buckner’s legs in the World Series or Russell Wilson being intercepted at the goal line in the Super Bowl.

And then there are “The Brackets,” as some college hoops fans call their annual March Madness office pools. March Madness wouldn’t be what it is if so many us didn’t feel we also have some “skin in the game.” For three weeks every mid-March to early April, friends, relatives, co-workers and colleagues fill out sheets containing their picks of who will win each and every game of the tournament, with each round often weighted by increasing point tallies. At the end, typically one winner is crowned and they will have bragging rights until the following spring.

We spoke with some INTIX members who are playing in this year’s INTIX pool to gauge their strategies; their methodologies; their favorites; who they often pick to succeed and, of course, who they will never, ever pick to win it all.

Strategies

So, do our basketball-loving colleagues have any specific methodologies when filling out their March Madness NCAA basketball tournament brackets each year? This wouldn’t be the super fun article it is if some didn’t.

Bruce Trout, Senior Director of Ticket Operations at Olympia Entertainment, Detroit Red Wings, says, “Instead of doing a region at a time, I go one round at a time through all four regions. I think if you go the first way, you end up with all No. 1’s and 2’s. But the other way, you start to pick off a favorite or two each round starting with the second round, and you get a more balanced Final Four with at least one sleeper which is more fun. You want to be the person that picked that No. 5 seed to make the Final Four.”

Bauer Entertainment Marketing President Brian Bauer states, “To win a pool, you have to nail the Final Four. I tend to start there and then work backwards. You can get the majority of first round games correct, and it still won’t matter if you don’t select at least two Final Four teams accurately.”

Emily Opalach, Senior Manager of Ticket Operations for the Washington Nationals, remarks, “I base most of my picks off of their points per game (PPG) and how many points they give up to their opponents per game (OPP. PPG). This method doesn’t always help all the time, though, but I’ll use this theory for both men’s and women’s.”

Rob McSparron, Operations Manager for VegasTickets.com uses what he calls the “‘Gut Check’ method. “First, I go purely on instinct — no stats, no analysis, just vibes. Then, I double-check my picks against expert opinions. If one of my choices looks completely unhinged, I’ll tweak it as needed. I will tinker right until the first tip-off, because self-doubt is part of the process.”

Marissa Topham, Box Office Manager for Utah State University’s Caine College of the Arts, says, “My methodology for filling out my brackets this year was looking at the ‘pre-filled’ form from the experts and the most common picks from other users. I'm pretty sure the most common was the bracket I picked.”

Mike Riddle, Assistant Box Office Supervisor at the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center in Sacramento, adds, “I actually keep it pretty simple and try not to overthink my brackets. I generally trust that the teams who've performed consistently well throughout the season will go the distance. That said, you can't win without picking some talented underdogs, too. I look for teams with strong fundamentals that might be flying under the radar. But at the end of the day, part of the fun is embracing the unpredictability of it all!”

Winging It

And then there are those pool players who are like Michelle Paul, Vice President of Growth Strategy at BackOffice Thinking, who says, “I have less methodology about March Madness than I do about literally anything else in my life. It's all vibes all the time. This tournament is so wildly unpredictable, so I've learned from experience that the less time I spend strategizing about my picks, the more likely I am to win!”

Dallas Janssen, Senior Manager of Ticket Services for the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Wisconsin, echoed Paul’s sentiments: “My exact words to my coworkers this morning were, 'I have no idea how any of this works!' As an arts person through and through, I don’t spend much time thinking about sports. But when I saw this was a fun way to support the INTIX PD&E fund, it seemed like an obvious choice to give it a shot. This is my first attempt at a bracket, so I was really going in blind with no plan. I went onto the CBS bracket and used one of the autofill options.”

INTIX Membership Associate Tiffany Kelham adds, “Honestly, I don't understand the stats, the points within the bracket, the win-loss details. The game itself is something I can't even watch because the sound of the squeaking shoes is like nails on a chalkboard — just can't do it! We just wing it. When my kids help, they like to pick the teams by the team mascots they like!”

Quirky Picks

Then there are those pool players who pick certain winners just because they like the team’s uniform colors or they know a team only because one of the players has a quirky name or the team has a funny nickname. This year’s NCAA Tournament has everyone from Derik Queen to Cooper Flagg to Johni Broome and such teams as the Purdue Boilermakers and the St. Mary’s University Rattlers.

Trout has one of the more interesting quirks among our interviewees. “If I am near 50/50 on a game,” he says, “I will go with whoever has a better PGA or LPGA player from their school! Like Texas has Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth or Arizona with Anika Sorenstam. Or whoever has a better golf course on campus. Doesn’t everyone use that trick?!”

Not to be outdone, Mandi Grimm, Etix’s Director of Fraud Prevention, says, “I picked my bracket based on where my family and friends live. I figured just have fun with it and support hometown teams no matter what their seed.”

“My only quirk would be if I know someone who works there,” Kelham states. “I will always pick a team or school where I know someone who is in their ticket offices. Even if they aren't in the athletic department, I want to cheer for their school to be supportive.”

Opalach says, “I tend to always pick Gonzaga in the men’s bracket to go to at least the third round. I’ve never attended that school and never seen them play live. I just love saying their name!”

Michelle Paul displayed some of her back office thinking when she replied, “When I was a kid, I always picked Michigan to go all the way on the basis of their name being pretty close to ‘Michelle.’ This is not a strategy I would recommend, in general.”

Bauer’s quirk was perhaps the most cerebral of those interviewed: “Where the games are played is often overlooked. It’s a safe bet that a team playing closer to home will have a strong fan base in attendance that gives them a competitive advantage.”

Matthew Rutherford, Box Office Manager at the CURE Insurance Arena in New Jersey, notes, “I always tend to pick a few 11-, 12- and 13-seeded teams to win round one and then usually one of them to make the Sweet 16. I also like to take teams from the Big East, which I believe is the best conference.”

And then there are those quirks that actually pay off. Take the case of VegasTickets.com’s McSparron. “For three out of the last four years, my biggest ‘quirk’ was believing that my alma mater, Drake University, would finally make it past the first round,” he said with a proud chuckle. “As of 7 p.m. PST on March 20, 2025, it's no longer a quirk! It's a fact! Go Bulldogs!” (No. 11 seed Drake indeed upset No. 6 seed Missouri in the first round, only to lose two days later to No. 3 seed Texas Tech in Round 2).

No Way! Never!! Never Ever!!!

And, finally, there are those March Madness pool players who have likely lost cash because they just couldn’t bring themselves to pick a certain college or university to go all the way even if they were heavy favorites to do so.

Shannon Reynolds, Senior Regional Sales Operations Manager of West Coast, Broadway Across America, proudly states, “There is a phrase I like to repeat: ‘Oh how I hate Ohio State!’ I would never pick the Buckeyes to go far.”

McSparron also gives the side eye to the Buckeyes: “A team I’ll never pick? Ohio State. Rooting for them feels like rooting for the measles.”

As for Utah State University’s Topham, she exclaims, “BYU! [laughing] I never want them to win. Or Boise State as they are a big rival of USU's.”

For Brittany Pallozzi, Director of Patron Relations at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in New York, one university confounds her more than any other. “A team that I never pick right is Gonzaga,” she laments. “I never like to pick them to make a run, and then they do! Every few years, I switch my mindset on them, pick them to make a run, and then? Then they fall short!”

Bauer was one of the few interviewees who could get past any negativity with yearlong bragging rights up for grabs: “It pains me to pick Duke. I hate them with a burning passion! But logic usually wins the day. You gotta respect the Blue Devils in March.”

Riddle agrees, saying, “I try to be more logical than emotional when making my selections, especially if there's money on the line ... My wallet appreciates objectivity over sentiment!”

A March Madness Super-Fan

A special shout-out to Shawn Robertson, one of the biggest March Madness fans of INTIX’s membership. He has been attending NCAA Men’s Tournament games since 2004, and this year will be his 12^th Final Four! In all, he says he has attended 168 “tourney games,” has seen 112 different schools at least once, been to 22 different cities and has been a witness to UConn winning four national titles. He says, “I’m slightly obsessed with the madness of it all. I love all of it. The cheerleaders and pep bands. All of it!”

Robertson is also one of those super-fans who plays more than one set of brackets each year: “I try and not be a homer and only pick the schools I root for. [chuckling] It is rare that it works out! Though I usually have at least one bracket that is my ‘dream bracket’ that might not be based on likelihood or reality, but it makes it fun even if that bracket is basically my loss leader. Otherwise, I try and be practical.”

And as for the team he will never, ever pick to go all the way? “I will never pick Duke, a.k.a. ‘The Death Star.’ I had great respect for Coach K [the legendary Mike Krzyzewski, who retired last year]. But that shade of blue is never the answer!”

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