Last year, I published the two NCAA basketball tournament (for fun and amusement only!) brackets I was in.

In both  cases, I picked the national champion correctly, Kentucky.

This year, I’m considerably more busy. I also didn’t have time to find a system, as I did last year. On the other hand, this year’s tournament is a considerably more wide open tournament, so maybe a system won’t help this year anyway.

This bracket is from a pool I’ve been in for several years:

The other bracket has a few differences, but the same Final Four — Duke, Gonzaga, Miami and Kansas — and the same national championship, Duke over Kansas.

I can’t say I’m particularly enthused about this. It is a difficult tournament to figure out this year. (For instance, last year’s national champion, Kentucky, didn’t get into the tournament. The Wildcats did get into the National Invitation Tournament, only to lose their first-round game Tuesday. Adolph Rupp is rolling over in his grave.) Maybe that’s why I picked three familiars, and why I don’t have Miami winning it all. I think that the team that wins it all is usually a team that’s been around the Final Four before, which certainly describes both Duke and Kansas.

I have Wisconsin and Marquette winning one game each. This Badger team is capable of anything from making the Final Four, which a few people I know have  predicted, to losing Friday. They are that inconsistent, and I don’t think you become magically consistent in March. To coin a phrase used at numerous levels of numerous sports, you are what you are.

I am unimpressed with any Big Ten team, including Wisconsin, which is why I have none of them going  to the Final Four. There are two ways of looking at that, I suppose — it’s a really even conference, or it’s not a very good conference. And there is certainly no team that stands head and shoulders over everyone, including regular-season champion Indiana and tournament champion Ohio State, both of whom lost to the woefully inconsistent Badgers earlier this season.

And, as of 11 a.m., away we go,. And if we’re lucky, we’ll see some of these: