Three weeks ago, Sebastian Carpenter was just a lowly Waltonian staff writer who had been tasked with writing up an article on the first weekend of March Madness action. Sebastian wrote that article, and he wrote it well. Said article was in fact so pleasing to the basketball gods that Sebastian’s bracket entry into the inaugural Waltonian Bracket competition picked up steam and wrecked the hopes and dreams of everyone else involved in the contest. Sebastian was one of six entrants to the pool to correctly identify Louisville as the National Champion and one of four entrants to correctly identify two of the Final Four teams (Louisville and Michigan).
In all, the competition had 22 entrants (a solid 1.5% of the Eastern student body, give or take). Yet among these 22 entries, there were more than a few interesting twists and turns. The single most impressive pick of the tourney was Senior Brian Lutter’s correct selection of Florida Gulf Coast over Georgetown. Sophomore Sam Marsh also got off to a hot start, correctly predicting 24 first round games and 11 of the Sweet 16 teams, but her hopes died when Syracuse lost to Michigan in the Final Four. On the other end of the spectrum, Senior Addison Martin had one of the most hilariously pitiful brackets in modern history, correctly predicting only four Sweet Sixteen teams, and missing every game from that point on. Silly Addison.
Eastern University News