Gator fans want to follow in the footsteps of their basketball team — No. 1 in the country.
This year, UF students are filling out their March Madness brackets with a dash of school pride.
Andrew Selepak, director of the UF online master’s program with a specialization in social media, said his students are looking forward to the tournament.
“My students are heavily involved in sports, and they’re going to be really excited about the March Madness brackets … and talking about their brackets,” he said.
Filling out a bracket requires participants to choose the winner of each matchup, predict the ultimate victor and call the final score.
Warren Buffet is upping the ante this year by offering $1 billion to anyone who guesses the entire tournament’s outcome correctly.
Selepak said $1 billion is going to motivate a lot of people to participate, but predicting a perfect bracket is impossible.
“You can’t predict some of the upsets that are going to happen or know when an injury might occur,” he said.
Kevin Hull, a 35-year-old UF mass communication and journalism Ph.D. student, said he thinks everyone has filled out a bracket at some point, but having someone to root for makes it more exciting.
“Obviously, students on campus here are going to root for the Gators,” he said.
Corey Tober, a 22-year-old UF accounting graduate student, has been participating in tournaments for about five years, but this is his first year betting money.
“It makes the tournament more enjoyable to watch because you’re affected in some way by the outcome of the game,” he said.
Selepak said the Gators going undefeated in the Southeastern Conference has generated a lot of school pride this season.
“Most of the students at UF were not here the last time UF won a national championship in basketball,” he said. “So for them, this is really exciting because they’re not used to this.”
[A version of this story ran on page 3 on 3/20/2014 under the headline "March Madness brackets create buzz"]
