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Bracket tips (for next year?)
Jerry Hinnen
PUBLISHED: March 20, 2008
This edition of "Fun and Games" may be a bad idea.
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For starters, "Fun and Games" is a column about high school sports, but this one is about the NCAA Tournament. It's about yours truly picks his NCAA Tournament bracket and how you can apply those same principles to your own.
So not only is it off-topic, but since I'd guess the number of people who are going to read their newspaper very first thing Thursday morning and pick a bracket for a pool and have the ability to change said bracket before the games tip off today are exceedingly slim, it's also useless.
I figure there's one redeeming quality for this column: everybody loves to do better at something than someone posing as an alleged "expert" does, so when all the picks herein fail to work out (and with my bracket on a multi-year losing streak to my fiancÈe's, there's a superb chance of that happening), hopefully you readers can at least warm yourself with the knowledge you would have bested if we shared a pool.
So, without further ado, the "Fun and Games" tips for how to pick a winning bracket:
1. Pay attention to victory margin. Lots of studies have shown that the idea of "clutch" in basketball is nearly nonexistent and that the old adage that "good teams find a way to win while bad teams find a way to lose" isn't entirely true. The biggest factor in the outcome of a one-possession game is, in fact, luck. The really good teams aren't the ones who win a whole bunch of close games; they're the ones that win a whole bunch of blowouts.
So be careful of teams, like Vanderbilt, that have built a good record with lots of tight wins. On the other hand, Kansas is a good choice to make the Final Four -- or win the championship -- as the nation's current leader in victory margin.
2. When picking low-seed upsets, try to go with mid-majors that won their regular-season conference title and have already beaten a power-conference team. Seems obvious, but the very best upset Cinderella candidates — like 11-seed Winthrop last year or 14-seed Northwestern State in 2006 — requires having both factors on their resume. Don't get too overawed just because a mid-major team had a good run in their end-of-season tourney.
So I'd recommend avoiding Western Kentucky, who finished second in the Sun Belt, or Cornell, who swept the Ivy League but never beat anybody of substance. Instead, I'd suggest Siena, who won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and took down Stanford in the regular season.
3. Don't stick too close to seedings -- in the second round especially. It's a good idea to start with your Final Four teams and fun to try and call those handful of first-round upsets, but you need to make sure to pick the right number of upsets in the second round, too. On average, around six or seven "protected" seeds lose in either the first or second round per tournament and it's easy to wind up with a bracket with only three or four out if you're not paying attention.
Last year only five protected seeds fell, which was a bit low, so there could be seven or even eight gone by the Sweet 16 this year.
4. When picking Final Four teams, offense is more important than defense. The old saying that "defense wins championships" (like so many other old sayings I enjoy picking on) just isn't necessarily true in the NCAA Tournament. A team needs both offense and defense (see the victory margin point) but the slower pace and jittery nerves associated with big tournament games means scoring goes down regardless of the defenses involved. It's the teams that are good enough offensively to score even in those pressure-cooker situations that manage to win the really big games.
So I wouldn't pick Wisconsin or Pittsburgh, two teams known for their defense, to advance to San Antonio.
5. Pick at least one "sleeper" to make the Final Four. Last year, two No. 1 seeds and two No. 2 seeds made it to the Final Four, but that's unusual. I wouldn't pick an 11-seed to make it (like George Mason in 2006) but taking at least one team with No. 3 seed or lower would be a good idea.
Personally, I like Louisville, who had an excellent scoring margin when healthy despite playing in the rugged Big East and also boasts tournament matser Rick Pitino at the helm.
So there you go. Here's hoping your bracket ends up in much better shape than I'm sure mine will be.
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