Every March, the time arrives to fill out your bracket for the NCAA Tournament. Whether you are testing your own knowledge by yourself or competing with friends at top-rated sportsbooks, the dream is the same: to fill out the perfect bracket.
While a bracket has never been – and probably never will be – filled out perfectly, a lot of people create some amazing brackets.
In order to beat your competition, it will be helpful to keep in mind some tips that prove valuable every year. Below are five tips that will improve your brackets.
Don’t Go Too Crazy With the Upsets
We all know that March Madness is a time filled with upsets.
Many of the most iconic moments that have been etched into our heads by sports media include these upsets. In fact, many of us remember the greatest upsets of all time more easily than the best tournament teams of all time. Still, we have to distinguish between perception and reality.
We have to recognize that we are easily biased toward lower seeds. Now that we have diagnosed our condition, let’s look at historical reality.
Last year, for example, it is true that we had a #16 seed upset a #1 seed and a #15 seed upset a #2 seed. However, the other three #1 seeds won their first-round matchup. Likewise, the other three #2 seeds won in the first round. Moreover, every #3 seed won their game against their 14th-seeded opponent.
The point is that there are a lot of results that conform to general expectations. It is true that, if you try to pick too many upsets, you will have a likelier chance of picking the incredible upset that the media heads rave about.
However, your bracket will suffer overall.
Memorize the Predictable Coaches
There are so many games to pick the winner of a NCAA Tournament bracket.
It is immensely helpful if you remember this tip, which will help reduce the overall deep-level contemplation that you engage in: certain coaches have predictable results every year.
Virginia, coached by Tony Bennett, tends to suffer an early-tournament exit. Last year’s loss to Furman was not an exceptional result for Bennett-led Virginia. Purdue, led by Matt Painter, is another team that is likelier than other teams to lose to a low-seeded team. In its last three tournament appearances, Purdue has lost to a 13, a 15 seed, and a 16 seed.
Furthermore, make sure that you don’t have a Rick Barnes-coached team – Tennessee, right now – advancing deep into the tournament. Barnes just can’t get the job done in March.
There are good March coaches, however, who are worth noting to the same extent that the bad ones are. One example is Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman. His Arkansas teams annually pull off impressive upsets. Last year, they beat top-seeded Kansas.
Be Suspicious of the Offensively Challenged Schools
You’ve surely heard the phrase, “defense wins championships.” In college basketball, this phrase is true, but only when the team with good defense can also score a lot of points.
Part of the “Madness” in March Madness is that it is hard to win too many low-scoring games.
One team or another will catch fire from deep. Defense, especially when it comes to guarding hot shooting teams, has its inherent limitations – a defense can’t stop a ball that has been shot from going into the basket.
Teams that are used to winning games in the 50’s and 60’s have too small a margin of error to sustain much of a tournament run.
Look for Guards, Veterans and Three-Point Shooting
If you look at teams that have suffered upsets, they tend to miss one of these three key things.A good example is Arizona, which is very much a frontcourt-centered team and which lost to 15-seeded Princeton.
College basketball is rather guard-oriented. So, the point guard – much like the quarterback in football – is central to a team’s outlook in March. Furthermore, because March Madness is unique in terms of atmosphere and in terms of the quality of competition faced, it is helpful to have veterans.
For example, the legendary Duke team with Zion Williamson was super talented but also very young. This team did not go as far as many predicted. In fact, it was so close to suffering a shocking upset loss to UCF.
Finally, if you look at recent champions, you’ll notice their three-point shooting prowess. The Villanova teams, Virginia and UConn last year all come to mind as recent champions that could shoot the three.
Be Open-Minded About Conferences
Don’t be prejudiced toward the Big Ten, as media pundits tend to be. Big Ten teams seem to disappoint expectations regularly, with Illinois and Purdue being two such disappointing Big Ten teams.
Likewise, success is far from guaranteed for Big 12 teams, although the Big 12 regularly gets touted as the best conference.
Conversely, be open-minded about the teams from smaller conferences. Just because they play against lower-profile teams does not mean that they cannot hang with the big boys.
Last year, Purdue was regarded as one of the best teams in the nation before it lost to a school that, among other awful-looking losses, had lost by eleven at home to a school called Stonehill.
