How to Win Your March Madness Bracket: Picks, Upsets & Game Theory

 

March Madness is back and once again we are presented the opportunity to solve the most fun math problem on the planet – the NCAA Tournament bracket. I say math problem because at the end of the day, using game theory better than your opponents is the quickest way to finding yourself near the top of the standings when the nets are cut down in April. I’ve been able to cash my medium-sized bracket pools in five of the last seven years – including taking down first place three times over that span. The constant for me has been utilizing the public information we have available to make informed decisions. We pretty much know the percentage chance that each team wins the tournament, and we can use the available pick distribution to find spots where our opponents are over or under confident in certain teams. You can find pick distribution numbers here via Yahoo

 

Around this time of year you will see several trends and stats posted about past tournament winners and how we can use that to identify this year's candidates. For example: over the last 21 seasons each National Champion has ranked top 21 in offensive efficiency and top 37 in defensive efficiency heading into the big dance per KenPom. All 21 also happened to be top-12 in the Week 6 AP poll. That gives us a pretty tight list of candidates, but more importantly I want to take that list and apply as much leverage as possible using the pick distribution. I also want to note that the landscape of college basketball is changing drastically year over year. In today’s game with NIL, I find historical trends to be less important. Let’s dive into each region before we pick a team to cut down the nets…

 

East Region 

Duke earned themselves the number one overall seed and while the general reaction was that they found themselves in a tough region due to the amount of “blue bloods” I really don’t share the same sentiment. This is not the same UConn team we’ve seen the last few years. Michigan State has been inconsistent. St John’s doesn’t have the make up of a deep tourney run in my opinion despite my love for Rick Pitino and I’ve been low on this Kansas team all year. For example, Kansas finished with a 23-10 record yet ShotQuality had them at 15-18 one of the biggest discrepancies in their data. 

Any high seed after Duke is vulnerable to an upset in this region in my opinion – but if I had to pick one team that could surprise people it will be the chalky South Florida. USF is a popular round one upset pick and I can’t argue against that with how they’ve been rolling into this tournament. 

 

Pick to Advance: Duke Blue Devils

Bracket Buster: South Florida Bulls 

 

South Region 

The South Region is where I think we can see the most chaos at the top – mainly because of how inconsistent the top seeds have been. Florida’s guards have played very inconsistently. While I love their team's makeup it’s tough for me to see them stringing together the games needed to win it all with how the guards have played. Houston is my ride or die team, but this is a different type of Houston team than we’ve seen under Kelvin Sampson and I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. Illinois on paper is one of the scariest teams in the tournament, but they didn’t play super well to end the season. Overall, the public is very certain one of Houston or Florida is exiting this region with those two teams accounting for over 75% of brackets. I think those two teams are more likely to advance closer to 65-70% of the time so we can find an edge with an upset here. The one team I can’t seem to shake is the Vanderbilt Commodores. I loved Vandy early on in the season and after a midseason lull losing three in a row at one point they’ve been elite since the start of February. If you isolate Bart Torvik’s rankings since the start of March – Vandy ranks 7th overall which speaks to how well they’ve been playing down the stretch. That would be the highest ranking among all teams in this region over the last 16 days. 

One interesting note from this region is Nebraska’s pursuit of their first ever NCAA Tournament win. I think Troy is live to win the game and pull off the upset, but it would be nice to see the Huskers make school history. 

 

Pick to Advance: Illinois Fighting Illini or Vanderbilt Commodores

Bracket Buster: Vanderbilt Commodores

 

West Region 

The West Region features the second-most popular champion pick – the Arizona Wildcats – who are being selected to win it all in over 17% of brackets. It also features two popular mid-seeds to make runs in the Wisconsin Badgers and Arkansas Razor Backs. Unfortunately, should they win their first round games, these two match-up in the second round. 

Arkansas was a team that I’ve backed all year – and recently cashed them at +600 to win the SEC Tournament. This is, in my opinion, the best team John Calipari has had in at least six years. They play together as a team, and are led by dynamic guard Darius Acuff who is, in my opinion, the best Freshman in the country. He’s the exact type of player that can take over a tournament and I’m going to be heavily invested in them to make a deep run. 

At the bottom of the bracket, Purdue is rolling and draws the easiest path to the Sweet 16 of any team in the tournament. I mentioned the Torvik rankings since March 1st above, and Purdue would rank 9th overall there. Overall, this team is peaking at the right time and I’m in on them to get to the Final Four. Given how popular of a pick Arizona is, this is a way you can separate a chalkier Duke or Michigan champ bracket. 

 

Pick to Advance: Purdue Boilermakers 

Bracket Buster: Arkansas Razor Backs

 

Midwest Region 

The Midwest looks like the chalkiest region to me – with Michigan sticking out well above the field and both Iowa State and Virginia set up well to meet in the Sweet 16 at the bottom of the region. Both those teams are capable of giving Michigan a game in a potential Elite 8 match-up – but I’m going to ride with the chalk here. 

This region features my favorite first round upset pick – the Hofstra Pride over Alabama. I bet this both spread and ML on Sunday night, only to get news on Monday afternoon that Alabama star Guard Aden Holloway was arrested on felony drug charges. HC Nate Oates said they are preparing to play without Holloway, further bolstering the case for Hofstra as a bracket buster. When looking for a Cinderella team I like to focus on teams that are very good at something. Whether that be rebounding, three point shooting, forcing turnovers etc. Hofstra has GREAT guard play and they’re top-30 in the country in three% as a team. They also play at an extremely slow pace, while Alabama plays very fast. These types of conflicting styles can often lead to upsets one way or another – and I absolutely think Hofstra can dictate the pace of the game with Bama down their best guard. 

 

Pick to Advance: Michigan Wolverines

Bracket Buster: Hofstra Pride

 

Overall the edge for me lies in the hands of the Michigan Wolverines. Regardless of what projection system or betting odds you look at – there’s a clear gap after the big three of Duke, Arizona and Michigan. Despite Michigan being neck and neck with those other two teams – the public is much more confident in picking Duke or Arizona. Both are being selected head and shoulders above Michigan across all Yahoo pools and that probably has to do with recent form. Both Duke and Arizona won their conference tournaments while Michigan got upset by Purdue on Sunday and that’s probably fresh on people’s minds. 

 

If you feel confident in Duke or Arizona winning I would advise making some leveraged decisions elsewhere to help separate yourself from the field. 

 

If I had to pick my favorite longer odds Champ it would be Purdue. They fit all of the criteria we look for in a champion pick and they’re peaking at the exact right time. They have the guard play to win in March led by Braden Smith and it’s important to remember this was the number one team in the country to begin the season it’s just taken them some time to hit their stride. 

 

Final Four: Duke, Illinois, Purdue, Michigan

Champion Pick: Michigan Wolverines

Favorite Upset: Hofstra over Alabama