The 2012 March Madness quiz: Testing your lack of NCAA Tournament knowledge

By Parker Swenson

It's March Madness, that time of year when everyone and their mother pretends to have paid attention to college basketball all along.

Ready for March Madness? Time to break out the brackets and enter that office pool. Time for every college’s wireless Internet to get overloaded by the 95% of students watching ESPN3 in class. Time for the inevitable “Cinderella story,” where some mid-major wins a game or two over an overachieving high-profile team that probably didn’t deserve that high of a seed in the first place. And time for all those bandwagon fans to emerge from the woodwork and start cheering for “their team.”

We all know that person. The one who loudly, arrogantly, and often drunkenly announces, “I called it. Those are my boys, right there!”

This is not to be confused with that other guy, the one who proclaims, “I’ve been rooting for these guys all along. I knew they were gonna win.”

We’ve probably all been that person at some point, and will be again this year. No matter how much ESPNU you watch or how often you bust out the Dick Vitale impression, you don’t know everything about college basketball. At some point, you’ll find yourself cheering for a team just because they have the tougher mascot or the hotter cheerleaders.

The question is, just how much of a bandwagon fan are you? Find out by taking the quiz below, and best of luck not being that guy in the bar simultaneously declaring your wisdom and tweeting about the latest #cinderellastory.

1. Which team did you pick to win it all? Now name their starting five. (1 point per correct player)

2. Name your “favorite” team in the tournament. Now name their starting five. (1 point per correct player)

3. List the “big six” conferences. (1 point per conference)

4. Name the top five NCAA Division I schools by all-time wins. (1 point per team)

5. Name where these “one and done” players went school (1 point per team):

      a. Dwayne Wade

      b. Derrick Rose

      c. Mike Conley, Jr

      d. DeMar DeRozen

      e. Kevin Durant

6. Pick any region of the NCAA tournament. Now list all the mascots in that region. (1 point per mascot)

7. Name Dick Vitale’s alma mater and the NCAA and NBA teams where he was the head coach. (2 points per team)

8. Who are the last five NCAA champions? (1 point per team)

9. Name the only school to win the men’s and women’s championships in the same year. (3 points)

10. Name the seven schools with at least three NCAA championships. (1 point per school)


Now check the answers below, add up your score and see how you did:

65 points: Did you really do this? Really? Nothing wrong? Somebody needs a job or a girlfriend.

55 - 64 points: Seriously, job or girlfriend.

45 - 54 points: Not bad. You know your stuff. But you probably overthink your bracket and have never won before, right?

35 – 44 points: Looks like someone knows who the popular teams are. Nice guessing there, champ. You’re the type of guy who never picks upsets and regularly has all four #1 seeds in the Final Four.

25 – 34 points: You only watch college basketball because your friends do. Your favorite teams are George Mason, VCU, and Gonzaga. Nothing makes you happier than picking against the grain. You are the hipster of March Madness.

15 – 24 points: Your only claim to fame is winning the office Women’s March Madness bracket.

Below 15 points: You are that guy in the bar claiming foresight. Go ahead and start tweeting your victory now. 

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Answers:

1) TBD

2) TBD

3) Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12

4) Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse

5) Marquette, Memphis, Ohio State, USC, Texas

6) TBD

7) St. Johns, University of Detroit, Detroit Pistons

8) UConn, Duke, UNC, Kansas, Florida

9) UConn

10) UCLA, Kentucky, UNC, Indiana, Duke, UConn, Kansas

Note: Author only scored 41. The perfect mix of knowledge and ignorance to pick my way to another bracket win.

Parker Swenson is Began in '96's senior quizmaster and an expert on bandwagon culture.