How to fill out a March Madness bracket for dummies
It’s time for the 2017 edition of my annual Meadowlands Matters blog post for folks who enjoy entering the Super Bowl office “box pool" — because they know anyone can win a contest where the numbers are randomly assigned to entrants — but who feel left out of March Madness office bracket pools because they feel outclassed by diehard sports fan colleagues.
With this primer, you can fill out a competitive bracket for your office pool even if you can’t name a single player participating in the tournament (heck, I do respectably well every year, and I don’t watch much college basketball). If you have 50 or 100 people in your pool, obviously I can’t promise you’ll win by any means — if I could, I would be living large in Las Vegas.
But if at least finishing ahead of some of those “sports know-it-alls” in the office would be satisfying, then read on.
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It’s about “game theory,” not basketball knowledge (I promise that no college basketball player will even be named in the course of this guide), and it goes like this:
The traditional first round consists of four 16-team regions (ok, there are four extra teams now, but we’re not going to get too sidetracked by that. Two of the “play-in” games are irrelevant, and the other two as tossups mean it’s likely not worth advancing any of those four teams very far. There are no bad choices in those four “play-in games” if they are are part of your pool, so pick anyone you like to win those games in that case. Most pools don't ask you to even pick those games, however).
Here’s how to handle the opening main-round matchups of your brackets (for example, you will notice a "1" vs. a "16" team on the upper left, lower left, upper right, and lower right. Same for each ot the other sets of pairings):
- 1 seed vs 16 seed. This is the best-rated team in the grouping against the worst. Don’t even look at the names of the schools – just take all the 1 seeds, who have never lost this game in more than a quarter-century (though a couple only won by one point). All the “experts” will do the same.
- 2 vs 15. It’s not impossible for a 15 seed to win by any means – but assume they won’t, and pass all the 2s forward. Simply a risk/reward decision, and if there is a rare upset, nearly the entire pool will lose along with you anyway. It's too scary to knock out one of the 10 best teams in the country immediately.
- 3 vs 14. I suppose I'll let you take one of the 14s – especially if it’s your alma mater, or you loathe the state where a 3rd seed is located because it reminds you of your ex-spouse, or whatever. If you're generally risk-averse, take all the 3s here, too.
- 4 vs 13. Now we’re getting somewhere. Take one 13 seed here if you’re so inclined, as upsets have been known to happen in this spot – and you’ll impress your rivals if you pick the right one.
- 5 vs 12. Historically, this a gold mine for upsets – so I’ll let you take two out of the four 12s here if you like. But don't take three of them - that's very likely too aggressive.
NCAA TOURNAMENT: A quick look at the four regions
PODCAST: March Madness brackets for dummies
There also is a video here if you prefer.
- 6 vs 11. The playing field continues to level further, so one or two upset picks again out of the four "6 vs 11s" are allowed. But don’t have more than three 11s and 12s combined – and avoid picking the 11s who are facing each other in play-in games (Kansas State/Wake Forest and USC/Providence). If you miss on the tossup games played by these teams on Tuesday and then pick one of those teams to win again in the main draw, then you could be out of luck on a main-draw game even before tipoff. Not worth it. [WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Kansas State won on Tuesday night, so if your pool allows you to wait, consider them beating their No. 6 opponent if you like Wildcats. Also if you have until noon Thursday to enter your picks (the latest possible scenario), then you can consider advancing Wednesday's USC/Providence winner a round or two.]
- 7 vs 10. You can pretty much take either team at this point, and if your pool gives extra points for correctly forecasting an upset (check on that, and that’s good advice for all 4-5-6-7-8 picks), lean toward the 10s.
- 8 vs 9. True tossups, and usually only a small bonus, if any, for picking the 9, so feel free to select by which mascot you like better or other silly reasons.
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Now, on to the second round:
You should mostly have these matchups below. If you don’t, eliminate all but perhaps one of the 11 through 14 seeds that you took in the earlier round. That keeps you from losing too much ground if your first-round hunches didn’t pay off.
- 1 vs 8 or 9. Very good chance the top seed wins this game as well – and if they don’t, well, almost everyone else missed it, too. So pick the No. 1 again. For sure.
- 2 vs 7 or 10. Safest bet is to stick with the 2s.
- 3 vs 6 or 11. Now you can start taking more chances — pick a pair of 6s, if so inclined, if they are schools you are fond of.
- 4 or 13 vs 5 or 12. Not only a tossup if you have 4 vs 5, you can’t even be sure either one gets this far versus the 12 and 13 seeds in the previous rounds. Pretty much just pick the better remaining seed on your second-round card, but you can take one 12 or 13 seed as winning again. It's tough for anybody to get the right one, but if you do it should impress the rest of the pool.
By following these recommendations, you should find yourself in the top half of your office pool entering the Sweet 16 – and the second weekend – as many others go too “rogue” and have too many predicted winners who don’t even get out of the first round.
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Sweet 16:
Only four teams are left in each region now. If you have any 8th through 13th seeds getting this far, eliminate them now. You’ll either cash out a profitable hunch - or cut your losses on that team before it’s too late. Same is somewhat true of any 5-6-7 seeds that you’ve carried this far. You’ll mainly have these pairings:
- 1 vs 4. The 1 seeds sometimes don’t get to the Final 4, but they are still tough at this level. Be VERY hesitant to eliminate more than one of them here.
- 2 vs 3. Pretty much a tossup, so you can revert to the “favorite mascot” approach again.
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Next: At the 'Elite 8" level, these are now regional finals. You most often will have:
- 1 vs 2. Feel free to pick as many 2s as you like — OK, probably not all of them. You can advance a 3 or a 4 seed here, too, but don’t go any deeper into the upset landscape than that – partly because hardly anyone else will, either.
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Now you have a Final Four as we look toward the third weekend’s contests. It should have at least 1 — but not all 4 — of the No. 1 seeds (only once in the last 20+ years have all four 1 seeds reached the Final Four – and, well, it's boring). You might even want to go with a 1, a 2, a 3, and a 4. Or a 1 and three 2s. Or three 1s and a 2. It all depends on how much you like the schools, states, or nicknames.
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Now we get to one of the most important parts — picking a winner.
Some years, there effectively are two segments of your office pool: The ones who pick the heavy favorite to win it all, and the ones who don’t. But things are more divided this year.
Your chances of winning the pool improve if you pass on the nearest local school that is a top seed, because that team will be over-picked compared to their likelihood of actually winning. Thus a West Coast team is a good gamble for East Coasters with this mindset, while defending champ Villanova is a good play for West Coasters.
This overall method maximizes your chances of at least getting to the second weekend with a fighting chance of winning the pool – and maybe beyond.
To win, or even to get into the top 10 percent of your pool – well, there are so many last-second baskets in these games that you have to be lucky to have the winner in most of those (not that the pool winner ever thinks so!). With so many entries in most pools, nobody’s odds are good, frankly.
But as much as your sports-fanatic work pals won’t want to admit it, you can eliminate a large part of their supposed advantage – and in many cases all of it – just by going by the numbers.