Alright, so I gotta tell you about this project I just finished, the Sangamon County boys basketball tournament bracket. Man, it was one of those things that seemed simple until I actually jumped in. Let me walk you through it.
The Starting Point: Pure Chaos
Every year, folks around here scramble for info on the county tournament brackets. Coaches, parents, even the kids themselves – it’s just a mess trying to track down who plays when and where. Last season, I was that guy scribbling team names on a crumpled napkin during a game. Never again!
This time around, I decided: I’m making a proper printable version myself. How hard could it be? Famous last words.
Step One: Hunting Down Reliable Info
First things first, I needed the official schedule and team placements. Figured I’d just hop online, right? Wrong. The county’s official site? Updated slower than my grandma dialing up the internet. Local news sites? Scattered info like breadcrumbs. I spent a whole Saturday morning glued to my laptop, clicking through half-broken school district websites and outdated PDFs. Coffee was flowing, let me tell you.
- Checked the IHSA website – too broad, county stuff buried.
- Scoured Facebook groups – lots of chatter, zero official confirmations.
- Emailed a coach I know – got a reply a day later with a text file. Progress!
Finally patched together the initial list from that text file and an archived post from the county athletic office. Teams, seeding, dates, locations – pinned it all down.
Step Two: Trying to Make it Pretty (And Failing)
Okay, so I had the data. Now what? My brilliant idea: build it in Excel. Easy-peasy grid lines! Started plugging teams in… and quickly realized Excel is clunky as heck for brackets. Formatting was a nightmare. Trying to get those diagonal lines showing who advances? Forget it. Cells kept merging wrong, text wouldn’t fit, the “Printable” view looked like hieroglyphics. Wasted two evenings wrestling with it, keyboard pounding intensity. Major frustration.
Step Three: Discovering the Bracket Maker Sites
Admitted defeat on the Excel disaster. Did some desperate Googling. Found a few websites specializing in tournament brackets. Some wanted money, some wanted you to sign up for their newsletter, one looked like it hadn’t been updated since dial-up days. Finally landed on one that was fairly clean and, critically, let you just download what you built without jumping through hoops.
- Painstakingly input every single team name and seed from my compiled list.
- Set the game times and locations I’d finally nailed down.
- Double-checked the matchups, triple-checked the dates. Sweating bullets here!
Hit the “Generate Bracket” button. Held my breath. It spat out a PDF. Opened it… Hallelujah! It looked like a real, actual bracket. Nice clean lines, readable text, dates clear. Printed a test copy at home – looked perfect, even with my slightly janky printer.
The Finished Product (And Why It Matters)
So, after all that digging, compiling, wrestling with Excel, and finally finding the right tool, I had it: The 2025 Sangamon County Boys Basketball Tournament Bracket. A simple, printable PDF that anyone could use.
Why go through all this hassle? Because I hate chaos. Because scribbling on napkins sucks. Because coaches shouldn’t have to rely on Facebook rumors about when their team plays next week. This bracket? It cuts through the noise. Print it out, stick it on your fridge, hand it out to parents – no more confusion. The county site might update eventually, but until then? This is gold.
Learned a ton: official info is often the hardest to find, Excel is terrible for bracket-making, and sometimes free online tools actually work great. Feels good to have something genuinely useful done. Now, onto the actual popcorn and basketball games!