It’s basketball time, but if you’re having trouble making a bracket (or just don’t care about college basketball), how about using artists to guide you through this year’s tournament? Check out all our coverage here.

So the tournament has progressed… not as I expected as far as actual college basketball goes. But over here in our own music brackets, turns out some of them were surprisingly correct. One of our finalists, Ezra Furman, was picked as a representative of Loyola-Chicago! Maybe our picks really did have something to do with basketball.

But now’s the time for us to pick a winner in the brackets. As a recap:

South Division Champion: Ezra Furman (Loyola-Chicago, 11)

West Division Champion: The Classic Crime (Gonzaga, 4)

East Division Champion: St. Paul & The Broken Bones (Alabama, 9)

Midwest Division Champion: Chynna (Penn, 16)

Now let’s see who’s coming out on top!

The Finals

Ezra Furman (Loyola-Chicago, 11) vs. The Classic Crime (Gonzaga, 4)

The Classic Crime pours their heart and soul into the music. That edge is very much clear. But, much like their name, they also rely on classic rock instrumentation and do it well. But it’s no match for the eclectic, off-the-wall productions of Ezra Furman.

Winner: Ezra Furman

St. Paul & The Broken Bones (Alabama, 9) vs. Chynna (Penn, 16)

Although both are fast-rising acts, St. Paul & The Broken Bones draws their sound from a strong connection to the past. Chynna, on the other hand, draws from a raw emotional honesty that looks into the future, and that propels her to the championship matchup in this round.

Winner: Chynna

The Championship

Ezra Furman (Loyola-Chicago, 11) vs. Chynna (Penn, 16)

It was a strong final matchup. Ezra Furman is a great artist to have made it this far, as we’ve said highlighting his run in the tournament up until now. But despite her ostensible 16 seed (that really didn’t make sense for the purposes of our exercise but we kept them anyways for drama), the A$AP-adjacent, West Philadelphia product Chynna was the one all along. From Elana, whose division she emerged from, on why she knew Chynna was going all the way: “Her hardened style, killer attitude, and SVU tattoo had me convinced she was a winner from day one. We goin’ to Disneyland.”

Champion: Chynna

Don’t agree with our winner? Let us know who your champion would’ve been on Twitter.