Seven pieces of advice when you’re filling out a 2021 NCAA Tournament bracket
This year’s NCAA Tournament will be unlike any in history with all 67 games being played in the state of Indiana and nearly all will be in Indianapolis.
Even thought most people are working from home, which could make it tough for office pools, there are plenty of online options for taking part in a tournament challenge.
Before you fill out that bracket, here are seven tips.
1. Check the line
Everyone loves an upset in the NCAA Tournament, but picking them in the first round isn’t always that easy. But if you’re leaning toward going with a double-digit seed, first take a look at the betting line.
Oddshark looked at opening-round games since 1996 and found the favorite won 74.8% of the contests.
“Teams favored by 5 points or more in that span went on to win 85.4 percent of games,” Oddshark wrote. “There’s a significant drop-off with teams favored by less than 5, however, as they won just 55.3 percent of games.”
2. Low five
No. 12 seeds have won at least one first round game in 30 of the last 35 tournaments and had a 50-90 record during that times, CBS Sports said. The only times there wasn’t a 5-12 upset during that time: 1988, 2000, 2007, 2015 and 2018.
In 2019, Murray State, Oregon and Liberty all won as No. 12 seeds, and the Ducks made it to the Sweet 16.
3. Eight or nine is not so fine
Picking first-round games between No. 8 and No. 9 seeds are often a coin flip, but whichever team advances rarely has what it takes to beat the No. 1 seed.
The Ringer found that from 2002 to 2018 the top seeds have won a combined 85% of their games against an 8- or 9-seed team.
All four No. 9 seeds won in 2019 (Oklahoma, Baylor, Central Florida and Washington), and then each lost in the next round to the No. 1 seed. And, of course, there was no tournament in 2020.
4. Pick your Final Four first
Most NCAA Tournament pools award more points as each round progresses. Some start with one point for each game in the first round all the way up to 32 points for correctly picking the national-championship winner.
Bracket Research wrote: “Another way of looking at it is that each round is worth the same number of points, and those points are spread equally to each game in the round. So, if you pick the champion and the Final 4 (the winners of each region) correctly you’ll most likely win your pool, no matter what your other picks were for the earlier rounds.”
In the last 33 tournaments, the champion has been a top-three seed, Bracket Research said.
5. Strength of schedule
When picking your champion, look at the strength of schedule.
NCAA.com noted that teams with a strength of schedule ranked between sixth and 15th have won seven of the past 10 national championships. Nine of the schools have reached title game, while 16 made the Final Four.
What about teams with a strength of schedule in the top five? In the last 10 tournaments, none has one a title and only one team has even made the national championship game.
6. East Coast bias?
According to Sports Betting Dime, a whopping 21 of the past 22 NCAA champions have been schools from the Eastern time zone.
It will be interesting to see if all the games being played in one state will be an equalizer.
7. KenPom’s numbers
Seventeen of the prior 18 NCAA Tournament winners, the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted, have ranked in Ken Pomeroy’s top 20 in both offensive and defensive efficiency ratings.
The Review-Journal said five teams are in the top 20 in both of KenPom’s ratings: Gonzaga (first on offense, 12th on defense), Michigan (sixth, fifth), Illinois (seventh, sixth) and Houston (ninth and eighth).
