Show Off Your March Madness Skills This Year!
There are many ways to win March Madness. For some, it’s being in the tournament and, you know, actually winning it. For others, it’s winning in your bracket pool that you athletically pored over from your couch.
For others, maybe it’s the friends they made along the way. But there’s another way to win March Madness, and that’s having the best bracket name in your bracket pool. It’s not exactly the most important thing about March Madness, but it’s definitely the most controllable thing about March Madness, considering that a perfect bracket is a statistical Holy Grail, and that you have no control over who busts whose brackets.
Clever bracket pool names are a time-honored tradition, with the best bracket names drawing on tournament terminology (like teams, mascots, coaches, players) and often blending it with recognizable pop culture (like movies, songs, memes, trends). So, in honor of this tradition, we polled The Athletic staff and came up with a list of our favorite bracket names for this year’s tournament. We’ll break it down into men’s and women’s for each of your brackets, plus a general category that works for both.
Best general March Madness bracket names Let’s kick this thing off with Billboard Top 100 songs, Oscar nominees, Taylor Swift references and even a little Shakespeare. One Bracket After Another There Will Be Blue Bloods Song Sung Blue Bloods Bracket to the Future The Ides of March Madness Yes, UConn No, UConn’t Bracketed Rivalry Permission to Dance The Life of a (insert team nickname) Best men’s tournament bracket names Now we’re getting into some real specifics with your brackets. Maybe start with your championship team’s mascot, coach or star player.
Or just mix it up with a movie or pop culture reference that fits with any term from the tournament. Below we have some options based on Duke’s Cam Boozer, the Michigan State Spartans, Kansas, Duke coach Jon Scheyer, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, Florida Gators coach Todd Golden and star Boogie Fland, the GonZAGa Bulldogs, Alabama mixed with a topical NBA star, Texas and Arkansas coach John Calipari. Add in some Billboard Top 100, movie titles, song lyrics, famous quotes, common phrases and you’ve got yourself a lot of bracket names.