{"id":197636,"date":"2026-03-19T11:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197636\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T11:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:08:16","slug":"march-madness-2026-why-im-fading-florida-gators-out-of-south-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197636\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness 2026: Why I\u2019m fading Florida Gators out of South Region"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">For the umpteenth March in a row, I find myself saddled with two NCAA March Madness brackets to fill out. One is for my grandma\u2019s work pool of 150 people for zero stakes; the other is for a handful of friends (half of whom are Gators) with a riveting $10 buy-in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The two brackets I create end up looking pretty different. I want to be aggressive in the larger pool and fade Florida in the smaller pool. That strategy didn\u2019t quite work for me last year, but hey, my Gators became champions. I\u2019m not complaining in the slightest about my failed 2025 approach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This year, I\u2019m going to fade my own school again in my local league. It\u2019s the mathematically responsible decision given the bias within the group, and beyond that, Todd Golden\u2019s squad is the weakest No. 1 seed with a tough regional path. I can\u2019t say I was all too inspired by their play in the conference playoffs, either.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">I\u2019ll likely end up taking Illinois over Florida in the Elite Eight. Otherwise, I\u2019ll be chalky across the board. It wouldn\u2019t be shocking to see all four No. 1 seeds make it to the Final Four for a second straight year, and we shouldn\u2019t expect much commotion from high-seeded teams in the early rounds, either. Not according to the podcast I listened to an hour ago, at least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the umpteenth March in a row, I find myself saddled with two NCAA March Madness brackets to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,2239],"class_list":["post-197636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}