This year’s NCAA March Madness may have lacked the signature chaos that fans have come to expect, but that didn’t stop Westminster students from diving into the tournament with full-throttle enthusiasm— and no shortage of strong opinions.
Unlike previous years that saw brackets busted left and right thanks to surprise upsets and improbable Cinderella runs, the 2025 tournament was surprisingly predictable. All four number one seeds advanced to the Final Four, and the number of true upsets remained minimal throughout the competition. While this consistency frustrated fans hoping for underdog drama, it led to historically accurate bracket submissions across campus.
Junior Valentina Goss took a bold swing, choosing Louisville to win it all in hopes of a storybook run.
“My bracket did so poorly because I was rooting for the underdogs and they didn’t get through,” Goss said, reflecting on her 25.8% accuracy. “The tournament didn’t have too many crazy upsets this year, which made it kind of flat.”
Senior Deven Patel, who correctly picked Florida as his champion, accomplished a bracket with 81% accuracy.
“My bracket was pretty good,” Patel said. “I would’ve liked more upsets, though— it was sort of dull with all four one seeds in the Final Four.”
This sentiment emphasizes the same idea of Valentina Goss: a boring tournament.
Junior Sydney Wszolek also impressed, landing at an 89% accuracy rate with Duke as her projected champion. Despite Duke falling short of the title, her bracket selections held strong.
“It wasn’t the most thrilling tournament, but I’ll take the high score,” said Wszolek.
Junior Neal Jindal, who also picked Florida to win, praised the team’s depth.
“They had nine guys who could start on basically any team,” Jindal said. His bracket, however, only placed in the 70th percentile. Unlike the others, he thought that the tournament still remained interesting.
“The early rounds were a little slow, but the Final Four and the championship were some of the best games I’ve seen,” Jindal said.
Freshman Austin Patterson, meanwhile, created one of the top-scoring brackets in the school, boasting a 94% accuracy rate.
“It went well because everyone I picked basically won— and Florida winning it all helped a lot,” Patterson said. “It was kind of easy to follow this year.”
At the top of the leaderboard was sophomore Ryan Yao, who clinched the schoolwide challenge with a staggering 99.7% bracket accuracy. Although his original bracket had Duke as the champion, it was his alternate pick with Florida taking the title that propelled him to victory.
“The final was pretty exciting,” Yao said. “Florida came back from being down 12, and I won the whole thing.”
He highlights a similar idea to Neal Jindal:the later rounds were very interesting.
Despite the tournament lacking its usual share of surprises, Westminster students remained fully engaged— filling out brackets, tracking their teams, and competing for bragging rights. It might not have been the most thrilling March Madness in memory, but it still managed to spark spirited rivalry and impressive prediction skills across campus.
Edited by Neil Govin
