It’s that wonderful time of the year where everyone rides the college basketball bandwagon for a few weeks. I’ll admit that I’m one of those people. I never watched college basketball growing up and my university didn’t have a team worth following so it’s not a sport that I follow closely. The result is that I get engulfed during conference tournaments and shortly after that the 64-team tournament. Even then, I really don’t know what I’m talking about so take my advice with caution.
While play-in games started a couple of days ago, those were just for teams that are just happy to get into the actual tournament that starts on Thursday at 12:15 ET with Murray St. taking on Colorado St. Tons of games in between and the day ends with Colorado-UNLV at 9:57 ET so you could ideally be watching 12 straight hours of basketball. Will I be doing all of that? No but around the US people will be watching all of the scores closely. It’s said that the first days of the NCAA tournament are some of the least productive works days in the entire year. Why’s that you ask?
Anyone can fill out a bracket! Anyone has a chance to win whatever pool they decide to join. What are the odds of getting a perfect bracket? Well, correct me if I’m wrong (I did the math in my head) but I think the odds are 1 in 35 billion or so…and that’s if you ALWAYS pick the higher seed which is something that never happens. Upsets happen all the time and usually you just have to get lucky and select a random school that can catch fire. If you’ve ever filled out a bracket and entered a pool then you know that it can be excruciating watching these games. Things may come down to a last-second miracle shot by a huge underdog. Exciting stuff.
If you’re thinking about filling out a last minute bracket consider these tips:
-Never under any circumstances pick a 16-seed over a 1-seed or a 15-seed over a 2-seed. Since expanding to 64 teams, a 16 seed has never won a game in the opening round. 15 seeds haven’t fared much better as they’ve only won 4 times and lost 104 times.
-When you’re picking a lower seeded team to upset the first couple of rounds (trust me, it will happen) don’t pick them to make it all the way to the Final Four. It’s only happened three times since 1985.
-Be careful when picking a team that relies on their offense. This is still a sport and defense/experience still wins championships. As much as a team can get hot shooting 3-pointers, they can go ice cold just as fast.
-When in doubt, just go with the “chalk” pick. In case you don’t know what that means, just go with the higher seed. There’s a reason that they were selected to the top of the bracket so it more likely they won’t let you down.
Good luck to everyone filling out a bracket! I’ll definitely need it because I may or may not have a substantial wager riding on my bracket. In case anyone was wondering, I have North Carolina beating Kentucky in the championship game.
