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: