Editing 1819: Sweet 16

{{comic
| number    = 1819
| date      = April 3, 2017
| title     = Sweet 16
| image     = sweet_16.png
| titletext = Every year I make out my bracket at the season, and every year it's busted before the first game when I find out which teams are playing.
}}

==Explanation==

{{w|March Madness}}, with its championship played on the day this comic was published, is a colloquial name for the {{w|National Collegiate Athletic Association}} (NCAA) {{w|basketball}} tournament, which features 68 American college basketball teams in an elimination bracket. Due to the setup, the 16 teams that make it to the third round of the tournament (or fourth if counting the "First Four") are sometimes called the "Sweet 16", hence the title. Winning a third round game means that a team is part of the "Elite Eight," who can win to move on to the "Final Four," and then to the championship game, where a winner is crowned. 

This is the second time [[Randall]] has made a bracket with strange opponents meeting each other in a bracket; the first was [[1529: Bracket]] and brackets were mentioned a second time in [[2131: Emojidome]]. References to basketball is a [[:Category:Basketball|recurring subject]] on xkcd, as is Randall's lack of interest for [[:Category:Sport|sport in general]]. 

In this comic, the bracket, see details [[#Table of the bracket|below]], of the final 16 is not filled in with actual college team names, but descriptions of the odd circumstances of each team. For example, the first team is "a school with a dog on their team", a reference to {{w|Air Bud}}. The team descriptions become increasingly bizarre, comprising varied sports and pop culture references and often building on and playing off of previous team descriptions.

The first four teams on the left are composed partially or completely of animals, which are most likely pets, but could be animals for assisting disabled persons, emotional support animals, police dogs, feral cats, etc. The next two teams consist of some form of {{w|baseball}}-basketball crossover. The bottom two teams on the left feature developers and players of {{w|NBA 2K17}}, a basketball video game by 2K Games.

The first team on the right, the {{w|1988–89 Los Angeles Lakers season|1988 Los Angeles Lakers}} is an actual historical {{w|NBA}} team; though the particular team from 1988 would not exist today, it could be a team of the same players, who would now be in their mid-50s or 60s. They are paired against a team of four kindergartners and current Cleveland player {{w|Lebron James}} (born 1984), who was also a kindergartner in 1988. James was considered the best active NBA player as of 2017. Ironically, LeBron James has since become a Laker, as of the 2019-20 NBA season; he has become the first NBA player to win a championship in 3 different teams (having previously won titles with the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers).

The next two teams feature basketball-{{w|boxing}} crossovers. The bracket after that features teams on unconventional mobility aids, {{w|Segways}} and {{w|stilts}}.

The final two teams are {{w|NCAA_Division_I_Men's_Basketball_Tournament#Cinderella_team|Cinderella teams}}. A {{w|Cinderella story}} is when a weak team works hard to achieve success. The final team consists of players wearing glass slippers, often a part of the {{w|Cinderella}} fairy tale.

The title text explains what Randall was supposedly doing to make this comic: Randall is incredibly out of touch with sports, or at least their traditions (see [[1480: Super Bowl]]). During March Madness, a popular pastime is to take a look at the starting bracket of all 68 teams and speculate who will win each round. This is sometimes associated with gambling, where the person with the closest-to-correct bracket could potentially win money. Randall, when handed a blank bracket, instead fills it with teams he ''wants'' to see play rather than who is actually in the tournament. A bracket is considered "busted" when a number of predicted teams lose earlier than expected. In this case, since Randall's Sweet 16 does not include any of the real teams participating in the tournament, his bracket is busted from the beginning.

As neither this comic from April 3rd or the previous comic, [[1818: Rayleigh Scattering]] from March 31st was one of Randall's [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comics]], this was the first year since 2010 with no April Fools' Day comic. See more on this in the [[1818:_Rayleigh_Scattering#No_April_Fools.27_Day_comic_in_2017|Trivia section]] for the previous comic.

Two years later in 2019 the April Fools' comic [[2131: Emojidome]], was using such a bracket as above to match 512 emojis to find the best emoji. Same time of year, so probably again a reference to March Madness.

===Table of the bracket===

{| class="wikitable"
!Grouping
!Team
!Explanation
|-
|rowspan="2"|School dog teams
|A school with a dog on their team
|rowspan="2"|Possibly a reference to {{w|Air Bud}}. Given Buddy's abilities, this would be an interesting experiment to see if a team of dogs can outcompete humans.
|-
|A school whose team is entirely dogs

|-
|rowspan="2"|Dog teams
|A dog team with one human
|rowspan="2"|This might be the continuation of the experiment. The cat might serve as a control.
|-
|A dog team with one cat

|-
|rowspan="2"|Baseball/basketball mashup
|A baseball team playing basketball
|rowspan="2"|Possibly inspired by {{w|Michael Jordan}}'s baseball career, this is to see if a baseball team can play basketball as well as a basketball team if they were handicapped with baseball gear. While basketball doesn't require any gear and favours outfits that permit free movement, baseball has helmets, bats and thick gloves, possibly giving the baseball team a chance. On the other hand, if the basketball team is permitted to use the baseball bats on ''the opposing team'', they may have a distinct advantage{{Citation needed}}.
|-
|A basketball team with baseball gear

|-
|rowspan="2"|NBA 2K17 (video game)
|NBA 2K17 top players
|rowspan="2"|There's a bit of ambiguity as to what "players" means: the professional basketball players whose likenesses are in the video game, or video game players? Given that the video game includes not only the current NBA players, but also some of the most successful teams in history, it's hard to see how the game developers can stand a chance if the former. If the latter, it may be more evenly matched. 
|-
|NBA 2K17 top developers

|-
|rowspan="2"|1988 players
|The 1988 Los Angeles Lakers
|rowspan="2"|The Los Angeles Lakers were, at their height, winning a rare repeat victory. LeBron James is one of the most well-known basketball players. At the time of the 1988 finals, he was 4 years old, so even with his later talent and with the support of 4 kindergartners, it would be tough for him to win the game. However, he might have a better chance if he played in the present, with the 1988 Lakers team members being well over 50.
|-
|Four kindergartners and Lebron James

|-
|rowspan="2"|Boxer/basketball mashup
|Boxers playing basketball
|rowspan="2"|Possibly inspired by {{w|Vonda Ward}}, this is to see if boxers can play basketball as well as a basketball team if the basketball team were handicapped by having to wear boxing gloves.
|-
|Basketball players in boxing gloves

|-
|rowspan="2"|Elevated players
|A team playing on stilts
|rowspan="2"|Stilts has been referenced several times in xkcd for instance at the bottom of [[482: Height]], [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/8/89/1608_1038x1095y_Hamsterball_and_stilts_room.png here] in [[1608: Hoverboard]] and [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/0/0c/1663_garden_One_color_Between_Light_yellow_and_yellow_First_thing_stilts.png here] in [[1663: Garden]].<br><br>Not unlike {{w|segway polo}}, segway basketball would have the benefit of reducing physical exertion. Stilts, on the other hand, could help reach the hoops.
|-
|A team playing on segways

|-
|rowspan="2"|Cinderella teams
|A bad team that would make a good Cinderella story
|rowspan="2"|In a regular match, a good team could easily win against a bad team, but with glass slippers only for the good team, the bad team's chances increase drastically. That the team would make a good Cinderella story implies that the team will win against all expectations.<br><br>Note: Regular glass would break when moving around too much, safety glass or similarly resilient material is recommended.
|-
|A good team playing in glass slippers

|}

==Transcript==
:[The comic shows a direct elimination bracket (a single-elimination tournament): there is a single match played by every pair of teams, and the winners of those matches are paired up for the next round of matches, this continues until there are no more matches to be played. There are sixteen teams described here (hence the number in the title), eight on each side of the empty rectangle in the middle. Every two teams are connected, these connectors are then also connected, these connectors are yet again connected, and a final pair of connectors, after making one counter-clockwise right angle turn, end up in the top and bottom edges of the central rectangle. The bracket is empty, no results of any of the matches are indicated.]

:{| class="wikitable" style="background:transparent;border:none;width:100%;"
| style="background:transparent;border:none;" |
<br/>[These are paired.]
<br/>A school with a dog on their team
<br/>A school whose team is entirely dogs

<br/>[These are paired.]
<br/>A dog team with one human
<br/>A dog team with one cat

<br/>[These are paired.]
<br/>A baseball team playing basketball
<br/>A basketball team with baseball gear

<br/>[These are paired.]
<br/>NBA2K17 top players
<br/>NBA2K17 top developers

| style="background:transparent;border:none;" |
<br/>[These are paired.]
<br/>The 1988 Los Angeles lakers
<br/>Four kindergarteners and Lebron James

<br/>[These are paired.]
<br/>Boxers playing basketball
<br/>Basketball players in boxing gloves

<br/>[These are paired.]
<br/>A team playing on stilts
<br/>A team playing on Segways

<br/>[These are paired.]
<br/>A bad team that would make a good Cinderella story
<br/>A good team playing in glass slippers

|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Baseball]]
[[Category:Sport]]  <!-- Boxing -->
[[Category:Video games]]  <!-- NBA2K17 -->
[[Category:Animals]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] <!-- Lebron James -->
[[Category:Tournament bracket]]