My son is 11 months old and barely watched any college basketball during the 2016-17 season.

He doesn't know the difference between a Golden Flash (Kent State) or a Flyer (Dayton), a Catamount (Vermont) or a Cowboy (Oklahoma State). Late tip-offs make him cranky.

In other words, he's not so different from many of the millions who filled out brackets for the NCAA men's basketball tournament this week.

That's the beauty of the tournament. You don't need to know anything about the 68 (now 64) teams in the field to fill out a bracket and experience the communal feeling of having your bold picks either upheld or shredded. The underdog, and potential for unpredictability, reigns.

I grew up as one of those people, filling out brackets every year by cutting them out of the newspaper. I chose my teams by a little observation and a lot of intuition.

And so did my son, Anderson, this week, for his first bracket.

The kid literally went with his gut.

Over dinner, my wife and I placed two identical pieces of Gerbers puffs in front of him. If he grabbed with his left hand first, that meant he'd chosen the favorite. His right, the underdog. If a matchup was of similar seeds, we went by the NCAA's official 1-68 seeding. We'd settled on this methodology through a few unscientific trials with banana slices earlier in the week, when he'd gone right a little more than half the time. That suggested his picks should be unpredictable, and also indicated a future point guard with no weak hand (perhaps).

We started in the East Region, and he went right for the underdog more often than not, almost worrisomely so. Those USC-South Carolina, Villanova-East Tennessee State matchups in the Sweet 16 were really something.

In the West, the upsets kept coming. No. 12 Princeton over No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 14 Florida Gulf Coast over No. 3 Florida State. I wondered, had I miscounted during the trials? Was he more right-handed than we'd expected? Was I reading too much into how he ate Gerbers puffs? (Yes.)

But then, a funny thing happened. Anderson went chalk.

Not Rock Chalk Jayhawk, mind you -- sorry Kansas, you lost in the Final Four, though to another one-seed, North Carolina. In all, three top seeds advanced to the Final Four in our kitchen, er, Glendale, including Gonzaga, which held off Florida Gulf Coast in the Elite Eight. Oregon made it to Elite Eight in the Midwest before losing to Kansas. I told Anderson their rebounding might suffer without Chris Boucher, but I don't think he heard me.

The out-of-nowhere pick was 13th-seeded East Tennessee State, who rode a hot streak of right-handed selections into the title game against North Carolina. Don't let anyone in Johnson City, Tennessee, tell you no one believes in the Bucs ahead of their first-round matchup Thursday against Florida, because a baby in Oregon does.

The Buccaneers' success was unexpected, the kind of Cinderella story reminiscent of Final Four runs in the recent past by George Mason, Wichita State and VCU -- that is, if you were alive to remember them. Anderson wasn't born in time to catch any of the epic ending to last year's tournament.

In a stunner, the Buccaneers pulled off the miracle in Anderson's title game. Congratulations to your national champion East Tennessee State Bucs. According to ESPN, 0.1 percent of its Bracket Challenge entrants also picked ETSU to win it all. Let's just say I'm not getting my hopes up that he'll win a national pool and have college paid for.

In the end, Anderson's bracket is highly unlikely, but was chosen confidently. That about sums up how my friends and I chose our brackets, too.

With his picks out of the way, we can now sit back and enjoy the best two days of the sports calendar today and Friday, during the first two days of the tournament.



The first games have just tipped off. I'll fill him in on the day's first results shortly.

He's currently napping.

-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com