Summary of tips and advice to (hopefully) help you win your NCAA Tournament bracket pool/challenge/whatever
- Most important is picking the winner. Here are the only contenders to consider (in order of likelihood):
- Duke
- Kentucky
- Michigan State
- Virginia
- Tennessee
- North Carolina
- Dark Horse Champion picks – these teams either don’t have Champ DNA, or have small, but significant chances of winning it all
- Kansas
- Michigan
- Florida State
- LSU
- Gonzaga
- Final 4 picks – stick with the contenders listed above with the following additions
- Also consider Kansas in the Midwest
- The West Region is wide open (notice there are no contenders in this region). I won’t be surprised if any of the top 10 seeds win this region, but the most likely winners are:
- Michigan
- Florida State
- Gonzaga
- Toxic teams, aka the pretenders, aka early-exit-candidates – don’t pick these teams to advance far:
- Purdue
- Texas Tech
- Houston
- First Round upsets – there are usually 6-7 double-digit seeds that win in the first round. My analysis shows we are likely to see only 4-6 this year.
- First Round upset specials (in order of likelihood)
- Minnesota
- Seton Hall
- Oregon
- Saint Louis
- Old Dominion
- St. Mary’s
- Potential Cinderellas – we almost always have at least one 11+ seed that reaches the Sweet 16. I’ve calculated a 63% chance at least one of these teams will be this year’s Cinderella:
- Oregon
- St. Mary’s
- Old Dominion
- Arizona State
- Saint Louis
- Liberty
- UC Irvine
- Beware the potential Bracket Busters – when a 6+ seed reaches the Elite 8, most people’s brackets are at least a little busted. I’m not saying it’ll happen, but the most likely teams to do it are:
- 7-Cincinnati
- 6-Iowa State
- 6-Buffalo
- 6-Villanova
- 7-Nevada
- 12-Oregon