LOS ANGELES — When leaves ripen red, birds across the country begin heading south. When branches turn bare, bears turn to hibernation for the winter.
Come spring, the birds migrate again, and Westwood native Jake Liker feels the pull of seasonal rhythms towards the fruitless quest for perfection. He opens up a spreadsheet, taking up arms with a tiny legion of a few hundred college basketball obsessives trying to predict the future through months of research.
This is "bracketology," the niche step before March Madness: try to guess every team's seeding in the NCAA hoops tournament. Liker was one of 229 brackets entered in 2023 on a site dubbed "The Bracket Project," a charming hub for both, say, the industry professional and the humble actuary to compete on their projections.
