April Madness

Years ago, all the world was abuzz at the idea of a "Competition," where star players would be ranked based on the unintended brilliance of their comments. The final standings were decided by a cloaked panel of judges, whose secret ballots were tallied to yield the eagerly awaited results.

This system, much like the BCS, had its merits. However, also like the BCS, it had its detractors - some of the competitors themselves felt the secret voting system was biased towards the star players, and some of the star players (gracious winners that they were) acknowledged and even supported these claims.

To democratize the system, therefore, this entry is proposing a trial run of a playoff system. Much like calls for the BCS to adopt a "Big Dance"-type playoff system to determine ultimately the finest competitors, this involves creating a bracket to determine which of us, indeed, is best capable of consistently delivering unintentional hilarity. So, without further ado, here is the bracket. Seedings were based on a combination of competitors' previous performances and a randomizing scheme.




Now, here's the plan : soon, I will post my predictions, along with some elementary reasoning as to why the matchups will proceed as I've outlined. All you other readers are free to do the same. There's no guarantee that this format will indeed take over the Competition (actually, it won't), so ultimately this is just an exercise in fun.

Enjoy.