My apologies if this, or a similar post, already exists, but I wanted to see if any of you have suffered similar defeats. I know a lot of you bypass the brackets altogether, which may eventually be the route that I pursue, but I typically enjoy them and cashed in pretty well last year, so I figured that I'd partake again in 2016.

As a family of three, with a toddler who can understand and communicate very well for her age, we decided to all fill out brackets this year to see how we would do. My wife, though selectively competitive, has not watched more than parts of some OSU basketball games this entire year, and my three year old daughter thinks that every team that she sees on TV is the Buckeyes, regardless of sport or level. I, on the other hand, have taken in a lot of basketball this year, watched some of the bigger matchups, and gathered information on teams like I were studying for an exam.

My Final Four:

• I watched Michigan State enough to know that this team had it all together. They play defense, they can shoot (understatement), and they demolished us three times in one season. Top that off with a coach who's always ready to play in March and this was a no-brainer. I penciled them in as my overall tournament winner.
• To me, Kansas was possibly the most complete team that I had seen all season, so they were my other championship game team. I hadn't been terribly impressed with Villanova and liked Kansas's region.
• After that, I made a gut call and went with Texas A&M over Oklahoma in my Final Four based on their high scoring capabilities and some of their big wins this season.
• Rounding out my foursome was a bit of a flyer, but I went with UK. They have scorers, have the talent, and certainly have the ability to perform at their best in March. A tough choice, for sure, but one that I thought just might work out.

The Wife's Final Four:

Without going into as much detail, she also had Kansas and Sparty, but opted for Duke and Wisconsin to round out her semi-finals. Her championship game was the same as mine because she had recently watched a portion of our B1G tournament game and had seen Sparty demolish us. She also knew that Kansas was the top dog of the tournament, so assumed they'd be there and picked them to win it all. Her gut feeling on Wisconsin, to be honest, was probably based on stories that she remembered hearing about last year (the 2014-2015 season), and she said that Duke typically just seems to be good, so she'd put them there too.

The Toddler's Bracket:

My brother found a website that listed a photo every tournament team's mascot, so I printed them off and simply asked her which one she liked better. Dogs were very prevalent, especially bulldogs, so she usually had them winning. She also made it crystal clear that animals trump people almost every time (she hated the WVU/SF Austin matchup that featured two human mascots!), but that she wasn't really a big fan of birds.

• UNC Asheville benefitted from a region with no other dogs, so they were her Cinderella team in the Final Four. Obviously, that didn't work out, but in her defense, the winner of that 2/15 game did advance, so she had that going for her.
• Like her daddy, she managed to list Texas A&M advancing from the West, but only because of the dog in their logo.
• Now, here is where she really took off... UNC's ram logo wasn't so much a powerhouse mascot as it was an animal that managed to square off (in her bracket) against a bird (FGCU), a Trojan (USC), another bird (Chattanooga), and a Panther (Pitt). The ram beating a panther was a bit of a surprise, but she offered that it was just a head and looked kind of mean.
• As for the Midwest Region, it quickly became evident that, although there were lots of dogs in this grouping, there was only one mascot that was a fruit with arms, legs and a hat. She found this to be hilarious, thus Syracuse made it to her Final Four, and was crowned as her eventual tournament winner.

My wife snuck by me in points, to finish second in the challenge, but neither of is even came close to winning. Now, I realize that kids have probably picked better brackets, but in a year when I couldn't even get a single Final Four team correct, my 3-year old daughter managed to get two of them by simply looking at mascot pictures.

Just felt like sharing the frustration (and a little bit of pride) in our family bracket challenge and hoping that some of you have similar stories/failures.

 Hope your brackets are doing better than mine!