Everyone and their mother is looking for tips on how to win their office NCAA tournament pools, and some key tips will help you do just that.
1. Stick Mostly to the Favorites
Almost every year, at least three of the four teams that make it to the Final Four are the No. 1, No. 2, or No. 3 seeds. Unless you have excellent reasons for picking an upset, stick mostly to the favorites, especially in the first two rounds.
On the other hand, this means you'll need to try to pick correctly when the lower seeds clash later in the tournament.
2. Avoid Imbalanced Teams
In the last decade, only 1 of the 84 teams that have had a top-10 offense or defense paired with an offense or defense that ranked worse than 70th made the Final Four, and only four made the Elite Eight.
This helps in ferreting out three of the lower seeds—Notre Dame and Iowa State, which are No. 3 seeds, and No. 4 Louisville. Iowa State could easily lose to SMU if it gets past UAB. Also be wary of picking No. 1 Duke to go too far, because the Blue Devils defense is almost bad enough not to qualify at this point. No. 6 Butler, No. 8 San Diego State, No. 10 Davidson, and No. 10 Indiana are also very imbalanced.
3. Choose Regular Season Champions
Teams that win tournaments often see boosted appeal, but history shows that teams with regular season conference titles (or both regular season and conference titles) make the Final Four way more than teams that just win the conference tournament.
That’s another mark against Notre Dame and Iowa State, and also counts against No. 7 seeds VCU and Michigan State. On the other hand, that’s support for No. 1 Kentucky, No. 1 Villanova, No. 1 Wisconsin, No. 2 Arizona, No. 2 Virginia, No. 2 Kansas, No. 6 SMU, and No. 7 Wichita State.
4. Look Ahead
If you see a matchup in one of the later rounds that you believe will almost certainly turn out to be a win, such as No. 1 Kentucky against No. 2 Kansas, think about which team could knock off Kansas a round or two earlier and choose them.
In this case, that would likely be Wichita State, Notre Dame, or Butler.
