Legion March Madness: One Shining Moment

Here is the final bracket of the 2023 Legion #MarchMadness 65th Anniversary Tournament, in which Brainiac 5 beat out Saturn Girl in a match-up of #2 seeds over the course of 67 Twitter polls. (Click to embiggen and clarify)

 

I ended up changing the format of the chart slightly as the tournament progressed, to make it easier to fit onto the screen. And note that some of the Twitter poll numbers might be a couple off from what's shown above, that's because we had some non-Twitter voters submitting their votes via Facebook.

Announcing the Tournament

• March Madness Tournament, Legion-style! (3/8)

Week 1

• Selection Sunday and First Four part 1 (Tue 3/14) polls 1-2
• First Four part 2 (Wed 3/15) polls 3-4
• Round 1 part 1 (Thu 3/16) polls 5-20
• Round 1 part 2 (Fri 3/17) polls 21-36
• Round 2 part 1 (Sat 3/18) polls 37-44
• Round 2 part 2 (Sun 3/19) polls 45-52
• Who's in the Sweet 16? (3/19)

Week 2

• Sweet 16 part 1 (Thu 3/23) polls 53-56
• Sweet 16 part 2 (Fri 3/24) polls 57-60
• Elite 8 part 1 (Sat 3/25) polls 61-62
• Elite 8 part 2 (Sun 3/26) polls 63-64
• Who's in the Final Four? (3/26)

Week 3

• Final Four semi-finals (Fri 3/31) polls 65-66
• Championship Game (Sun 4/2) poll 67
• Who won the Tournament? (Sun 4/2)

Legion March Madness: Who's the 65th Anniversary Tournament Champion?

After more than 15 months of voting, here's the final bracket and champion for the 65th Anniversary Tournament. It's Brainiac 5 for the win over Saturn Girl, 62-50!

• Biggest upset: #2 Mordru losing in the 2nd round to #10 XS. Yes, #2 Computo lost to #10 Cosmic Boy, which is the same level of upset, but it doesn't feel like an upset.
• Biggest non-surprises: Six of the Elite 8 were either #1 or #2
• Cinderella story: #10 XS making it to the Elite 8, beating #7 Shikari, #2 Mordru, and #3 Tyroc in the process, before falling to overall #1 Timber Wolf to get to the Final Four
• Most votes cast: 112 votes cast in the finale between Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl; 90 votes in the Sweet 16 down to Elite 8 round, featuring #1 Princess Projectra vs #5 Gates
• Fewest votes cast in the regular tournament (not counting the First Four games): 55 votes, in the match where #4 Kid Quantum II defeated #5 Booster Gold going into the Sweet 16
• Biggest margin of victory: #2 Brainiac 5 vs #7 Eltro Gand leading into the Sweet 16 round, by a score of 58-0
• Smallest margin of victory: #3 Ultra Boy vs #6 Wildfire, which ended in a 30-30 tie in the first round and which Ultra Boy won in the "overtime" 38-36, giving one point to the winner. So Ultra Boy officially won that one 31-30.

Brainiac 5 eliminates Saturn Girl in the 65th Anniversary Tournament

When I started this project in January 2022, I hadn't decided what I was going to do with the weekly results yet, but then I did the math and realized that with 65 years of history, that was pretty close to the 68 teams in the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament. Plus, the 65 years (weeks) would end in March, so I could take the data and build my own bracket, with some wildcards chosen in a manner to be determined.

When it was all over, I ended up with 559 choices leading to 59 weekly winners. I added 3 more categories: people from the L.E.G.I.O.N./R.E.B.E.L.S. series I had left off, people from the various teams the Legion had met plus people I had forgotten to include, and then high vote-getters who didn't win their bracket. That made 68 representatives out of a total of 707 choices. It was a lot of work going through the various online databases to see who first appeared when, and if I left someone off, well I'll get to them for the 100th anniversary.

It was a lot of work to put together over the last 15 months, I hope you had fun voting along the way. Thanks for playing along!

Stay tuned for what I have next time, but it'll be a while.