Don’t know hoops? Easy ways to fill out a bracket

Maybe you feel obligated to fill out an NCAA tournament bracket for that office pool.

Maybe you haven’t watched a lick of college basketball this season. Or maybe you’ve filled out 15 brackets and you want to have some fun with No. 16.

Whatever the reason, don’t worry — we have you covered.

If you’re sick of poring over advanced metrics or couldn’t care less about strength of schedule, here are eight fun, creative and generally nonsensical ways to fill out your NCAA tournament bracket this week.

1. Mascot wars

The classic. Really, though, you can spin it a couple of different ways. Which school’s mascot would win in a fight? That one’s always good. Or which mascot would win on the court, in a game of one-on-one? Or the method that draws beauty from its simplicity: Which school’s mascot do you like better?

2. Location, location, location

This one might take a bit of legwork on Google Maps, but it’s worth it. All you have to do is figure out where each game is being played, look up the locations of the two schools and determine which one is closer to the tournament site. The closer the school, the easier it is for fans to get there. Shorter travel time equals more fans and, in theory, an atmospheric advantage.

3. Vacation style

On the other hand, you could always just pick the home city where you’d rather go on vacation. (This is perhaps the easiest way to justify a Southern California-Miami title game.)

4. Academic rankings

For the more studious fans, pull up the latest U.S. News & World Report academic rankings (or other university rankings of your choice) and let book smarts dictate your picks. This might be the only bracket in which Penn, the Ivy League’s representative, is a Final Four lock. That said, you might also end up with Duke in your Final Four here, which isn’t the worst outcome in the world.

5. Lewis Black vs. Bing Crosby

That’s what last year’s championship game would have looked like, according to this method: Look at the lists of famous alumni from each school, pick the coolest one outside of sports (or including sports) and pit them all against each other. It might take a bit of research, but it’s also a learning experience. (Black did his undergraduate work at North Carolina, while Crosby got an honorary degree from Gonzaga after spending three years there but not graduating.)

6. Colors of the win

Fun fact, courtesy of USA TODAY’s Adam Woodard: Only one championship team in the past 14 years did not have blue as a school color (Louisville in 2013). So just pick blue teams and you’ll probably be OK! Or just let your color-scheme preferences dictate your picks.

7. Pick a sport, any sport

Maybe you don’t care about college basketball, but you love college football or baseball or tennis. So just go with what you know and make your picks through the lens of another sport. (If you’re a college football fan, this might also get you riled up about the idea of an eight-team playoff. Oh well.)

8. Flip a coin

The only method in which LIU-Brooklyn and Duke have exactly the same chance of winning. In the interest of full disclosure, the odds of you getting a perfect bracket this way are about 1 in 9.2 quintillion. But hey, why not?