NCAA Tournament Bracket Tips

Before finalizing your NCAA Tournament bracket, you may want to take a look at these tips. I’ve broken down some important numbers to help you win your pool.  Open an account, deposit $116 and get an instant 100% bonus at Sports Interaction!

Tips for picking upsets: No. 15 and 16 seeds are off limits. While you must pick some underdogs if you are going to win your office pool, you need not look for those dogs beyond the No. 14 seeds. Let’s put it this way. A No. 16 has never defeated a No. 1 seed. While there has been a No. 15 over a No. 2 seed upset before, it has only happened four times so the odds just aren’t in your favor.

While No. 13 and No. 14 seeds win at a higher rate, it is still not a good idea to flood your bracket with upsets from these seeds. Since 1985, when the tournament field expanded to 64 teams, a No. 13 seed has pulled off the upset just 21% of the time and the No. 14 seed has done so only 15% of the time. Your chances with No. 13 seeds improve if they are strong interior teams getting more than 53% of their points from frontcourt players. In fact, these 13 seeds are more than five times likely to pull the upset than those which rely on the bulk of their scoring to come from their guards. For No. 14 seeds, take a look at teams scoring more than 77 ppg as they upset No. 3 seeds 33% of the time.

How far to ride Cinderella: History has shown that you should take teams seeded 10-12 that won in round one out to the Sweet 16 line. Don’t get crazy taking seeds 13 and higher deep. They normally go down in round two if they were lucky enough to pull the upset in round one. Also, only one team seeded 12 or higher has ever made the Elite 8 so draw the line with your Cinderella’s at the Sweet 16.

No. 1 for a reason: No. 1 seeds have been chosen as such because they are the best that college basketball has to offer, picked by very qualified people.  So don’t think any of them are going to bow out too prematurely. History tells us you should take at least three No. 1 seeds out to the Elite 8 line and at least two to the Final Four.

Jimmy Boyd was an industry-best 19-7 in the 2009 NCAAB Tournament (73%) and he enters the Big Dance on a 10-1 NCAAB burner this season. Don’t miss a single one of his expert basketball picks this March!