There are no teams from the state of Georgia in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Sadly, my team also is missing from the bracket because of a self-imposed ban following allegations of stripper parties for recruits. Sigh.
But let us forget our disappointment and turn our attention to the only thing left to root for other than a Kentucky loss: winning our bracket pools. I watch a lot of college basketball, which may or not help me analyze a single-elimination tournament that the selection committee screwed up in seeding.
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I accept no responsibility if you follow any of these tips and lose your bracket but claim all of the glory if you follow any of this advice and it somehow works out. Here are four tips for winning your bracket pool:
1. Don’t pick a seed lower than No. 8 to make the Final Four
In the past nine years only two of 36 Final Four teams were seeded lower than eighth: No. 11 VCU in 2011 and No. 9 Wichita State in 2009. In 31 years of the expanded tournament, only four of 120 teams seeded lower than eighth advanced to the Final Four. Only one team seeded lower than sixth has advanced to the championship game: eight-seeded Villanova, the famed Cinderella that won it all under coach Rollie Massimino in 1985.
Final Four picks are important because, in the typical progressive points pool, having all four right is worth as many points as picking all of the first-round winners correct. So leave the big Cinderella upsets for early in the tournament.
2. Pick (smartly) against favorites
Usually the Vegas lines for college basketball games closely align with Ken Pomeroy's efficiency ratings. But the opening lines for the tournament games favored the favorites by a significant margin: 28 of the 32 games posed had a larger margin for the favorite than kenpom.
That means bookmakers expect the general public to back the favorites. That public includes the people in your bracket pool. That means you should find spots to pick against favorites, especially if your pool has a lot of entrants and thus will require some upset picks to win.
Also noteworthy: Since 1985, all top four seeds in region have made it to the Sweet 16 (third round) just 15 of 124 times (12 percent) and it's happened just once in the past six tournaments. And all four No. 2 seeds have made it to the Sweet 16 just once in the past 19 years and twice in the 31 years of the expanded bracket.
Here are some teams that I think are vulnerable to losing to a lower-seeded opponent (based on computer ratings, bracket matchups and game location): No. 1 Oregon, No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 3 Utah, No. 4 California, No. 4 Duke, No. 5 Baylor, No. 6 Seton Hall, and No. 7 Oregon State.
3. Don’t pick a 16 or 15 seed to win. Do pick a 14 seed and a 12 seed (or two) to win.
No. 1 seeds are 124-0 vs. No. 16s and No. 2 seeds are 117-7 vs. Nos. 15. There is no upside in picking against these trends.
However, do take a shot with a No. 14 seed to beat a No. 3 seed. No. 3 seeds are just 8-4 in the past three tourneys. As I noted above, I believe the weak No. 3 seeds are Utah (vs. No. 14 Fresno State) and Texas A&M (vs. No. 14 Green Bay).
For a while it paid off to pick a No. 12 seed to beat a No. 5 every year: Nos. 12 were 15-13 from 2008 to 2014. Last season was the fourth time since 1985 that a No. 12 failed to win but I’m going to pick No. 12 Yale to beat No. 5 Baylor this year.
4. Beware of bracket-busting coaches
Pete Tiernan no longer maintains his bracketscience.com site. That's too bad because it had some great analysis, including what he called "performance against seed expectation." Basically PASE measured how teams performed relative to the historical record of teams with the same seed.
Using this formula, Tiernan evaluated how particular coaches' teams tended to over- or under-perform their team's seeding in tournaments. Tiernan last updated PASE in 2013 but there are some coaches with enough historical data to figure out whether they are trustworthy.
Back these coaches with confidence that their teams should avoid big upset losses and might advance a line or two further than their seed indicates: Sean Miller (No. 6 seed Arizona), Tom Izzo (No. 2 Michigan State), John Calipari (No. 4 Kentucky) and Roy Williams (No. 1 North Carolina).
Beware these coaches whose teams consistently under-perform their seeds: Mike Brey (Notre Dame), Jamie Dixon (Pittsburgh) and Bob Huggins (West Virginia).
5. Pick a champion that passes the 'Pomeroy test'
Pomeroy has ratings going back to 2002. All but one of the 14 champions since then ranked in the top 20 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. The outlier champion was Connecticut in 2014, which had the 10th-ranked defense but the No. 39 offense. The Huskies won what Tiernan called the most unpredictable NCAA tournament since the field expanded in 1985.
Six teams pass the Pomeroy test this year: Kansas (No. 1 seed), Virginia (No. 1), Michigan State (No. 2), North Carolina (No. 1), Villanova (No. 2) and Oklahoma (No. 2). The safe play is to make one of these teams your bracket champion and avoid picking them to lose in upsets. I like Michigan State to win it all.
Or because this bracket could be somewhat unpredictable, you could take a chance on one of the two teams that just missed passing the Pomeroy test: West Virginia and Purdue. (But note above that West Virginia coach Huggins is known to flop as a high seed.)
Or you could just pick any team you want as champ and have fun watching March Madness, the best sporting event in America.
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