The NCAA Tournament is, by far, America’s greatest sporting event. Nothing is close. The Masters, maybe the Super Bowl because of the culture that has sprung up around it, comes in a distant second.
March Madness has everything. Most importantly, it has brackets. Here are a bunch of tips for filling out yours before Thursday morning.
Under No Circumstances…
– Have more than two number one seeds in the Final Four. Not only are the odds against having more than two #1s mathematically, it just makes you look bad.
– Pick less than two 12s over 5s. In the last four years, the 12s have won 66% of those games. This is the classic March Madness Upset.
– Randomly pick a Cinderella to make the Sweet 16 for the sake of having a Cinderella in the 16. It won’t happen. You will lose.
– Pick a team that has burned you before. I’m picking Eastern Washington over Georgetown just because I cannot bring myself to root for Georgetown after I picked them to win the whole thing in 2012 and they lost to Florida Gulf Coast. NEVER AGAIN.
– Do not, I repeat, do not go with all favorites. Winning is fun, but picking even one major first round upset is the most fun. That’s what this thing is all about.
– Do not wager anything on Mark Gottfried. Mark Gottfried is actually the worst coach.
– Be the guy who fills out his bracket early, goes mostly with chalk, and then gets talked/thinks himself into numerous upset picks on Tuesday and Wednesday leading into the tournament. That guy is kicking himself the entire weekend.
– Forget to fill out your bracket. I cannot possibly state how horrible that is.
Teams We Like
1. Kentucky. Obviously. I’m racking my brain, but I can’t think of any team as dominant as Kentucky basketball this year in any sport in the last decade.
2. Wisconsin. This is the same team that made the Final Four last year, except Frank Kominsky turned into the Naismith Winner.
3. Arizona. The team most like Kentucky in the field. Has absolutely destroyed everybody they’ve played since losing to Arizona State in early February. Could have won the Pac-12 tournament with their walk-ons.
4. Iowa Sate. Fred Hoiberg is a god. This team plays great offense, and is never out of any game.
5. Oklahoma. Mini Iowa State. Lon Kruger is less awesome than Fred Hoiberg, but the two teams are very similar.
6. Notre Dame. Hard to shake the feeling that they’re lightweights, but the ACC Tournament demolition of Duke and Carolina has everyone buying. They play sensational offensive basketball when they’re on.
7. Michigan State. Izzo is life. He is 5’4 of basketball wizardry. This team sucked in February. They took the B1G tournament championship to overtime in March.
8. Villanova. It’s hard to know exactly how good they are, but ‘Nova is 32-2, they share the ball, and Jay Wright can coach.
9. Stephan F. Austin. Same club that beat VCU with the amazing four point play last year. Record of 29-4.
10. Buffalo. This team can score in bunches, they’re coach by Bobby Hurley, and they have a 12 seed. Slam dunk.
11. Baylor. Criminally underrated all year, this team has an extremely high ceiling and no one is talking about them.
12. Wichita St. Probably would have made the Final Four last year had they not run into a #8 seeded Kentucky. Last year, they were the talk of the tournament. This year, they’re the team no one is talking about.
13. Northern Iowa. The ghost of Ali Farokhmanesh!
14. Duke. They have arguably had more jaw-dropping runs this season than Kentucky. This team is ungodly when they’re on. They have a ton of great wins, but for some reason, they’ve been inconsistent. Can they really win six in a row?
15. Eastern Washington. They’re playing Georgetown! It’s literally impossible not to beat Georgetown as an underdog in the first round of the tournament!
16. Georgia State. They won their conference championship game 38-36, and their coach tore his Achilles in the post-game celebration when his son, who is also the star player of the team, tackled him. They also have Kevin Ware. This is clearly the great American team.
17. Albany. Check out the story of the player that hit the game-winning shot to send them to the tournament. The best story in the tournament.
18. Valparaiso. They’re coached by Bryce Drew, who hit the biggest shot in Valpo history, a moment in tournament history which got Kevin Harlan a commercial and is also the least aesthetically pleasing/worst call of a major upset in tournament history.
Teams We Don’t Like
1. Louisville. They’ve dealt with tumult all year, they can’t score, and they got a rough draw.
2. Virginia. I love everything about Tony Bennett and what he’s built, but this team is banged-up with Justin Anderson not fully healthy, and the Cavs just aren’t built to win in March.
3. Kansas. The Jayhawks are about as bad as they’ve been in a decade. Thing is, Big XII teams are just physically incapable of every winning a game in Allen Fieldhouse. Without Cliff Alexander, in the NCAA Tournament, things change. Plus, Kansas usually chokes. They lost to Stanford last year for god’s sake.
4. Georgetown. Blech! Yuck! Ugghhhh!
5. Utah. Honestly, Utah sucks. The Pac-12 is terrible, and their record has been artificially inflated all year.
6. Oklahoma State. They have the exact same record as UCLA! They’re actually not good!
7. Texas. Had a freaking losing conference record!
8. West Virginia. I will never not love Bob Huggins, but WVU is a little short of talent and has been found wanting against every team as talented as them this year bar Kansas.
9. Davidson. They worry me. They just got pulverized by a weak VCU team in the A10 tournament – and that was after a buzzer-beater to survive in the quarterfinals.
10. LSU. The SEC sucks.
11. Georgia. The SEC is awful.
12. Ole Miss. The SEC is actually so bad.
13. SMU. So very not sold on this team. They didn’t play anybody all year in the two-bid American Athletic Conference, and although they have Larry Brown, they’re hardly battle-tested.
14. Ohio State. I think they’ll beat the crippled Rams of VCU, but Ohio State is actually terrible outside of D’Angelo Russell this year.
15. Harvard. Yeah, they’ve won games the last two years, I know. But they’ve underachieved all of this year, barely got past Yale into the tournament in the first place, and UNC is a hell of a lot better than New Mexico or Cincinnati.
Miscellaneous, But Very Important
Coaching Is Everything!
Find the good coaches, and pick their teams. The good coaches aren’t always the famous coaches – John Calipari, for instance, would never win if his team wasn’t stacked.
This is crucial. Rick Barnes would get outcoached by a ficus. Coach K has one tournament run in the last ten years. John Thompson III might feint the moment the game tips off. Tom Crean is nothing special. Dana Altman is terrific. Ed Cooley is underrated. Lon Kruger has a terrible tournament record at Oklahoma.
Pick your spots – St. John’s is a better team than San Diego State, but give me Steve Fischer over Steve Lavin every day of the week. Same with Larry Brown over Steve Alford.
You Have To Score!
Defense, with a few exceptions, is about effort and size. At this juncture, most teams have size. And it’s the tournament – everyone will give maximum effort. But there’s no erasing offensive deficiencies.
Do not fall in love with teams that play great defense. Though they should be rewarded, they often aren’t at tournament time. Beware Louisville, Virginia, Butler, Georgetown and Northern Iowa. Nothing gets you beat faster than not being able to score. Three pointers are absolutely crucial for all underdogs. The Cinderellas who can bomb from three dance longer.
Correct Your Mistakes!
Stop betting everything on Duke. Stop picking against Baylor just because Waco is the worst place in the world. For the love of everything holy, stop picking Mark Gottfried’s team. Do not fall in love with a team who grinds out wins. You can grind out a maximum of two wins in the tournament, and only if you’re Brad Stevens or Izzo. Everyone else can only grind out one win.
Always Bet Talent!
At this point in the season, talent tells. There is no greater deciding factor in the tournament then which team is more talented. That’s the reason you have to watch out for low-seeded major conference teams against higher-seeded mid-majors, and the same reason why you have to watch out for power conference teams that have criminally underachieved all year.
The Cinderellas Aren’t Random!
If you look close enough, you can find them. Every team in the tournament has a story, and if you look at enough of those stories, you can start to pick out the threats.
With that, enjoy the dance. There’s nothing like it.
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