2018 March Madness parody ideas

[CNGL-Leudimin]

As you may know, since 2016 I've been replacing all 68 teams in the March Madness by a single themed field. In 2016 I put towns and villages from all of Spain (there was at least one representative for each one of the 50 provinces). I assigned them in a somewhat random order, but taking care of grouping them geographically (true regions as opposed to what happens in March Madness) and not drawing towns from neighboring provinces together in the first round. In the end most Catalan towns were out in the first round, and the second round featured the most populated town of the field against the least populated village (which is also the least populated municipality in Spain at just 5). Eventually the only team which didn't change its name, Villanova (also a village in Huesca province in Northeastern Spain), won the title.

For this year 2017, the field had names that also happen to be (eponimously-named) diseases. This time, though, I thoroughly seeded overall from 1 to 68 so when Selection Sunday came I just placed them in the field in the same order. The four top seeds where set, they were in this order Pearson the mitochondrial syndrome, to which I attached Villanova afterwards to mark the defending champions; Dravet the epilepsy; Van der Knaap which is an alternate name for a leukodystrophy (and which eventually won the title); and Tay-Sachs. The rest were chosen randomly, but I put "Charcot-Lou Gehrig" (The name ALS went with in this parody) as no. 32, another mitochondrial disease as no. 41 (since Pearson was already no. 1 the honor went to Kearns-Sayre instead), and Cowden at the very bottom (since a fraudster pretended to have this syndrome to his own benefit, I deliberatelly placed it there so it would be either the first out or blown by Pearson). Of note was the presence of two teams named Leber. As noted above and when Pink Jazz commented the Cardinals stadium might lose its sponsored name, Van der Knaap took the title.

After this lengthy introduction, to what is said in the thread title. The 2017-18 season might have not started yet, but I'm already seeking the topic for the March Madness, so I can select the roster in advance. Only rules are that the pool must have at least 68 names in order to fullfill the field, and also not contain any profanity. Otherwise anything is valid (like I did this year).