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NCAA Tournament
Many of the features I have included on this site are here because I
wanted to shed some light on something that is a bit of an unknown, or on something that I feel is underrated. That is certainly
not the case with the NCAA Tournament. In fact, by the final round I am rarely still interested. By far the best part, it
seems to me, is the earliest part. The tournament stays interesting until the final four are declared. Then it becomes more
weighted to the favorites, it seems, and less quirkiness occurs. Also by that point baseball season is just about to open,
and between the two, after months of watching nothing but basketball I'm ready for some outdoor sports.
Those early rounds, though, can be a lot of fun. In 2006 I was able to
see George Mason knock off North Carolina before watching Ohio State fall in the second round. I have always enjoyed the chance
to see several teams play and hear several fight songs and see several groups of fans on the same day in the same venue. But
I am certainly not the only fan that knows the excitement of those first couple rounds. I enjoy seeing football stadia turned into basketball arenas and I like seeing all the different neutral basketball courts. I also enjoy seeing top seeds fighting for their lives in
supposedly easy games, and I like seeing several big upsets going on at once.
But here are a few tips when it comes to the tournament:
1) The key to winning a bracket contest, or at least not finishing
last, is to do it the dull way - by picking the favorites. This doesn't always mean picking the better seed, as often a #10
seed is actually a better team than the #7 seed. But by picking the best teams you're doing yourself a favor in the long run.
While upsets may be fun to pick, and can gain you some accolades in the first round, incorrectly picking bad teams to win
can be disasterous when it comes to the second, third and fourth rounds.
The fact is that while you might earn the reputation as a genius for
picking Mt. St. Mary's to beat Duke the one time in a hundred they actually do, chances are Duke will win that first round
game, and a second round game, and a third round game. Mt. St. Mary's, after pulling the upset, will likely lose in the
second round, so all you gain is one point. In terms of probabilities, picking Duke, and the rest of the favorites, is a good
bet (except, of course, if George Mason is playing).
2) The #12 seed doesn't always beat the #5 seed. As much as this upset
pick is played up, it only happens slightly over half the time. While that is more often than other upsets, picking all the
#12 teams to win isn't likely to gain a lot of points.
3) The #10 seed beats the #7 seed more often than the #9 seed beats the
#8.
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