When I wrote this article two years ago, I started it like this …
“I will never forget the first year I filled out an NCAA Tournament bracket. It was the year 2001. I had picked Duke to go all the way — which they did — and I won every pool I entered, winning hundreds of dollars. I was hooked.
I haven’t won a penny since.”
True story. What I failed to mention was that in the following years, I’ve been down right dreadful.
I watched Bracketology. I read every Jay Bilas/Dicky V/Andy Katz piece. I picked up the telephone-book sized USA TODAY preview. One year I even came up with my own rating system, for every.single.team.
The harder I tried. The worse I performed. Like, top 13 percentile performed.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t come close to my top 98 percentile finish when I was 16 years old — a time when I was more worried about what Chrissy from English thought of my new highlights than whether or not Duke would make the Final Four.
My girlfriend now (not Chrissy), filled out a bracket for the first time last year, having no idea what she was doing. I’m pretty sure she thought VCU was a contraceptive.
Guess what? She finished second in my pool, nearly winning the damn thing, and finished in the 95th percentile in all of Yahoo.
So is that flashy ignorance the secret? When it comes to March Madness, is it truly the less you know, the better you perform?
In my opinion, here are the only ways to successfully fill out your bracket. But before we start, a few base rules …
Rule #1
Advance all No. 1 and No. 2 seeds to at least the second round. Go ahead, just pen them in. In fact, I would pen them into the Sweet 16 automatically as well.
A No. 1 seed has never lost in the first round to a No. 16 and a No. 15 has only beaten a No. 2 seed seven times, ever.
That’s a 124-0 record in the first round for No. 1’s. And 86% of the time, No. 1 seeds advance to the Sweet 16.
Rule #2
Don’t get too crazy and pick all No. 1 seeds to the Final Four. All four No. 1 seeds making the final weekend has only happened once (2008).
Picking your winners
Now we move on to selecting the other 50+ games. Don’t worry about getting them all right. The odds of that happening, according to statisticians, is just one in 9.2 quintillion — whatever that number is.
Remember, the goal is simply to win your pool, which, in order to do, means you’ll have to nail the Final Four.
Here’s how to pick your teams.
The stats method
Hey, numbers don’t lie. Just look at some key stats and trends from the tournament. Here are a few of my favorites from this year:
CBS: 1. National champs play offense and defense. Twelve of the past 13 national champions finished in the top 20 of kenpom.com’s offensive and defensive efficiency ratings. The only school to buck that trend was 2014 Connecticut, which finished 39th in defensive efficiency. Six teams currently fit that criteria in 2016: Michigan State, North Carolina, Kansas, Virginia, Villanova and Oklahoma.
Upset alert?: The 23 combined losses by the top four seeds is a record for the NCAA tournament.
ESPN: The 2014 and 2015 tourneys featured the first time that a No. 13 seed failed to win a game in back-to-back years. Prior to that, 13 seeds had won at least one game in a record six straight tournaments from 2008-13.
You get the idea. There are endless fun-filled stats on the interwebs to lookup and choose from.
The mascot method
Rowdy the Rodrunner of Cal State Bakersfield is in the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever. Can he handle a ‘Sooner?’
If the two mascots fought, which would come out alive?
This is fun. You taking a Spartan (Michigan State) or a Blue Raider (MTSU)? A wildcat or a fictitious Jayhawk?
Watch out for those Cal-State Bakersfield Road Runners who are making their first appearance ever in the tournament. Yes, Roadrunners are real! And they’ll get ya!
This bracket could get nuts.
Proximity method
Simple. Whichever team is playing closer to their home court wins.
The school colors method
Go ahead and pick your favorite colors. Blue usually does pretty good: UNC, Duke, UK, KU, WVU, Xavier, Nova, UCONN, etc.
The cute coach method
Both coaches have an NCAA title, but who’s more handsome? Bill Self or Kevin Ollie?
No lie. A best friend’s mom won hundreds of dollars from a pool in which she filled out her bracket this way.
You taking Bill Self or Kevin Ollie in a potential second round matchup? It’s a fair question!
The cheerleader method
Donald is one lucky duck.
This is a counter method from the previous. Holy smokes, if you’re filling out your bracket this way can you choose anyone other than the Ducks?
The Vegas method
Simply look at Vegas odds.
Who has the best chance to win it all? Here’s what we got as of Monday afternoon.
Kansas 5/1
North Carolina 5/1
Michigan State 5/1
Kentucky 12/1
Virginia 15/1
Oregon 18/1
Villanova 18/1
Oklahoma 20/1
Xavier 25/1
Duke 25/1
West Virginia 25/1
Indiana 30/1
Maryland 30/1
Miami, Fl. 30/1
Purdue 35/1
California 35/1
Texas A&M 40/1
Arizona 40/1
Utah 45/1
Baylor 50/1
Iowa State
The rest of the list can be found here at VegasInsider.
And finally … The Brad Evans method
Is it coincidence I’ve finished in the top 70% of yahoo brackets the past two years after speaking with Yahoo March Madness expert Brad Evans? I think not.
Whichever expert you choose, pick one and stick with the advice of a guy who’s been eating and breathing college hoops all season.
I’m sticking with Brad and his advice again for this year:
Brad’s final four picks: Kansas, Texas A&M, West Virginia, Michigan State.
Brad’s National Championship game: Kansas vs. Michigan State
Brad’s National Champion: Michigan State
Potential Cinderellas:
- Cal – “Just like a fine wine, the Bears have gotten better with time.”
- Northern Iowa – “There isn’t a No. 11 seed with more multi-win potential than UNI.”
- Wichita State – “If Shaq Morris, Markus McDuffie and Zach Brown establish a consistent offensive presence inside, the Shockers can hang with anyone.”
- Chattanooga – “the Mocs are sneaky snakes waiting in the grass”
- OTHER POTENTIAL CINDERELLAS: Gonzaga, UNC-Wilmington Michigan, Stony Brook, South Dakota St.
Brad thinks Northern Iowa is a very dangerous under-dog i this year’s tournament.
Potential Bracket Busters: UNC, Maryland, Arizona, Duke, Villanova, Xavier, Indiana, Utah
Some tips:
1. Top dogs don’t necessarily pack the most vicious bite
Since the tournament expanded to its current capacity in 1985, just over 41-percent of No. 1 seeds have advanced onto the Final Four. During that span, only once have all four top seeds made it to the Mecca of college hoops (2008). Typically, the Final Four features two No. 1s and two lower seeded teams from the Nos. 2-4 range.
2. Don’t fall in love with too many Cinderellas
Selecting upsets is a bragging exercise. Everyone wants to boast to their buddies they had the stones to pick a team from the Ivy League. But becoming enamored with an abundance of underdogs can bloody your bracket in a hurry. Shocker specials do and will happen, but not nearly as often as many would lead you to believe. Approximately 14-15 percent of top seeds per season are bounced early. That trend, though, is rising. Over the past five years, roughly 19 percent of big boys have gone home crying. Last season, due to knockouts levied by Dayton, UCLA, NC State and Georgia State, 17 percent of higher seeds were bitten by the upset bug. Obviously, don’t pick by the book. Just be mindful underdogs only occasionally topple regional favorites, especially over multiple rounds.
3. When you do court Cinderella, think offense
Defense may win championships, but when it comes to the NCAA Tournament offense most often defines upsets. Of the teams seeded No. 11 or lower that marched out of Round 1 over the past 10 years, 63 percent had an offensive efficiency rank of No. 75 or better. Among this year’s batch of double-digit seeds South Dakota St, Stephen F. Austin and Gonzaga are squads that fit the trend.
4. Team balance wins championships … most of the time
If you comb through the NCAA tournament annals, one key predictive metric stands out among Final Four participants, a small differential between offensive and defensive efficiency. Well-rounded teams that force turnovers, guard the glass, generally frustrate opponents and score the basketball consistently are, predictably, difficult to eliminate. According to the ridiculously addictive site KenPom.com, the average efficiency differential (offense-to-defense) of championship teams from 2002-2015 was -5.7. The average offensive efficiency rank was 7.21, defensive was 12.91. Interestingly, the disparity among Final Four participants during that span was just shy of +2.0. Of this year’s batch of single-digit seeds ranked inside the top 25 in offensive and defensive efficiency, Virginia, Kansas, Villanova and Oklahoma have the tightest separation in the those categories.
You can read more from Brad here. Definitely go to Yahoo and fill out your bracket here.
Josh Helmuth is the editor of Crave Sports. Follow him on Twitter or like the channel on Facebook.
