Site Notice: This Thursday we're planning a basketballgasm liveblog, culminating in the Michigan-South Dakota State game. Probably getting started with the afternoon games, so you've got from now until then to get your brackets filled out and get your work done before productivity goes to Bolivia. Viva March!
My new tradition. I'm not really the basketball guy around here, however I do seem to perform really well when it comes to March Madness brackets, getting back more than my pay-in every year since 2000 (won twice). The first six years of that was luck—since then I've just been working really hard at it so I don't lose the streak.
For those filling out their brackets today here's some helpful stuff. My favorite tool for clearing the biases is the Wall Street Journal's blind comparison. Also never miss the annual GARGANTUBRACKET by Czabe.com, the blog Bracket Science and the gloriously cheap calculator at Poologic, which lets you program how many upsets you want and find inefficiencies to exploit. Use SCIENCE! to take money from your friends and co-workers!
The last tool is my own (<<<<<grab it here>>>>>). It turns KenPom's ratings into a confidence %, and then automatically pulls up which venue the game will be at and whether there's any injuries you need to know about for either team. Who likes drop-down menus?
What I do is normalize the closest 16-1 matchup (Kansas vs. WKU at 22.6% difference in KenPom's "Pyth") as 100% for the 1 seed to win, and use the KenPom ratings to percentile everyone else's games into a confidence number. Then I roll through anything under 70% and decide if my knowledge of those teams might justify taking the under.
Here's the first round, where "Confidence" is a measure of how likely the top seed might be to win. The venue is listed so you can identify things like don't take Boise over K-State in KC, or how 12-seed Cal (a team worse than Virginia, Iowa, Denver, Baylor, Kentucky, Stanford, UConn, Maryland, and Sothern Miss according to Kenpom) is basically playing at home in San Jose.
[UPDATE: I had some errors in the below chart. Now fixed. The tool was fine but I've added an option to set your own chaos factor.]
| High Seed | Low Seed | Difference | Confidence | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indianapolis Regional | ||||
| 1 Louisville | 16 North Carolina A&T | +62.6% | 100.0% | Lexington, Ky. |
| --or-- | 16 Liberty | +68.8% | 100.0% | Lexington, Ky. |
| 8 Colorado St. | 9 Missouri | -1.2% | 48.8% | Lexington, Ky. |
| 5 Oklahoma St. | 12 Oregon | +5.4% | 55.6% | San Jose, Calif. |
| 4 St. Louis | 13 New Mexico St. | +17.9% | 68.6% | San Jose, Calif. |
| 6 Memphis | 11 St. Mary's | -3.2% | 46.7% | Auburn Hills, Mich. |
| --or-- | 11 MTSU | -1.2% | 48.8% | Auburn Hills, Mich. |
| 3 Michigan St. | 14 Valparaiso | +15.6% | 66.3% | Auburn Hills, Mich. |
| 7 Creighton | 10 Cincinnati | -6.0% | 56.2% | Philadelphia, Pa. |
| 2 Duke | 15 Albany | +40.2% | 91.8% | Philadelphia, Pa. |
| Los Angeles Regional | ||||
| 1 Gonzaga | 16 Southern | +48.1% | 100.0% | Salt Lake City, Utah |
| 8 Pittsburgh | 9 Wichita St. | +8.1% | 58.4% | Salt Lake City, Utah |
| 5 Wisconsin | 12 Ole Miss | +7.7% | 58.0% | Kansas City, Mo. |
| 4 Kansas St. | 13 La Salle | +3.9% | 54.0% | Kansas City, Mo. |
| --or-- | 13 Boise St. | +6.1% | 56.3% | Kansas City, Mo. |
| 6 Arizona | 11 Belmont | +6.2% | 56.4% | Salt Lake City, Utah |
| 3 New Mexico | 14 Harvard | +25.3% | 76.3% | Salt Lake City, Utah |
| 7 Notre Dame | 10 Iowa St. | +1.1% | 51.1% | Dayton, Ohio |
| 2 Ohio St. | 15 Iona | +27.5% | 78.6% | Dayton, Ohio |
| Arlington Regional | ||||
| 1 Kansas | 16 Western Kentucky | +48.6% | 100.00% | Kansas City, Mo. |
| 8 North Carolina | 9 Villanova | +4.0% | 54.1% | Kansas City, Mo. |
| 5 VCU | 12 Akron | +8.1% | 58.4% | Auburn Hills, Mich. |
| 4 Michigan | 13 South Dakota St. | +26.1% | 77.1% | Auburn Hills, Mich. |
| 6 UCLA | 11 Minnesota | -5.0% | 44.8% | Austin, Texas |
| 3 Florida | 14 Northwestern St. | +40.0% | 91.6% | Austin, Texas |
| 7 San Diego St. | 10 Oklahoma | +5.7% | 55.9% | Philadelphia, Pa. |
| 2 Georgetown | 15 Florida Gulf Coast | +33.3% | 84.6% | Philadelphia, Pa. |
| Washington D.C. Regional | ||||
| 1 Indiana | 16 Long Island | +50.5% | 100.00% | Dayton, Ohio |
| --or-- | 16 James Madison | +51.3% | 100.00% | Dayton, Ohio |
| 8 NC State | 9 Temple | +9.0% | 59.3% | Dayton, Ohio |
| 5 UNLV | 12 California | 6.6% | 56.9% | San Jose, Calif. |
| 4 Syracuse | 13 Montana | +37.4% | 88.9% | San Jose, Calif. |
| 6 Butler | 11 Bucknell | +2.7% | 52.8% | Lexington, Ky. |
| 3 Marquette | 14 Davidson | +8.8% | 59.1% | Lexington, Ky. |
| 7 Illinois | 10 Colorado | +1.3% | 51.4% | Austin, Texas |
| 2 Miami FL | 15 Pacific | +30.6% | 81.8% | Austin, Texas |
General tips:
If you're in a big pool, run multiple brackets, each with carefully selected upsets. There's no such thing as an NCAA tournament without lots of big upsets and at least one surprising run. The 1 seeds all made it to the Final Four just once. If you submit one milksop bracket you're up against every other milksop bracket and will get beat by the one crazy guy who had LSU going to the Elite 8 or something. Hitting on a carefully selected upset that rearranges a bracket and lets you ride a different high seed to the Final Four is the most typical route to a win.
If you're in a small pool, play conservative. One or two points won't usually make a difference in a small pool, but the likelihood of something crazy like that one guy's wife who picks based on the cuteness factor of mascots winning is cut down so you don't need to take risks to get ahead.
Pick the upsets the most carefully. I love picking 6-11 upsets because if you get it wrong they're bound to get wiped out by the 3 anyway. If you roll the dice on a 3-seed or lower losing early though, you'll feel like an idiot as the rest of your pool collects the easy points. A tournament without upsets never happens, but neither does a tournament with all the upsets. You can totally undo a great pick with a terrible one elsewhere.
Get value for your upsets. Know who's in your pool and the inefficiencies. Fans will generally take their favorite team to go two rounds later than they really belong and conference teams to go a round further. This is an inefficiency.
Be really really lucky. This is really the only rule.