More Strategies to Win Your Office March Madness Bracket Pool
It’s time for March Madness, which means it’s officially time for office pools and larger tournament challenges to take center stage! Two weeks ago, I wrote about strategies to win your pool by looking top-down at who your champion will be and how they combine that with an optimally filled bracket. Today, let’s dive into two more strategies you can apply to fill out a winning bracket with some gambling tidbits along the way.
Analyzing the Regions
It’s important to look at each region holistically when selecting your final four teams. They are never created equally, and this year, you have a couple that jumped off the page to me. In the East, each of the top four seeds won their conference tournament and looked good doing so. It’s highly unlikely that you have a longer price be able to get through UConn, Iowa State, Illinois and Auburn. If you are playing a longer shot to win, this is a good bracket to be chalky in since people who select someone like Baylor or Alabama will likely have this as a chaotic region to allow their champion through to the finals.
It’s also a good region to play a 2-4 seed to win it all. They will be used less in most pools simply because UConn is sitting on the 1-line in the East.
The Midwest could be the region that produces the most chaos. You’ve got 3 of the top 4 seeds, Purdue, Kansas, and Creighton, that all have major warts coming into the tournament, ranging from past failures early (Purdue) to lack of shooting on the road (Creighton). Lower seeds like McNeese State (vs. Gonzaga), Samford (vs. Kansas), and Oregon (vs. South Carolina) could all realistically pull off a shocker, and the winner of Utah State vs. TCU looks like they will give Purdue everything that they can handle. All of this is wonderful to Tennessee, who, at +350 to win the region, has a ton of value in my eyes. Longer shots like Utah State at 75-1 and Texas at 16-1 are also worth a look.
Playing the Conference Game
Selecting conferences that you believe are strong and weak is a good way to try to set up your bracket for success. Last year, the Big East went 12-4, aided by UConn’s 6-0 run, but even without them, the conference went 6-4, which would have been the second-best mark by percentage (West Coast’s 4-2 would have led) meaning the entire conference performed very well. I will have a close eye on the Mountain West this year. You will hear a lot about San Diego State and how they made a deep run, but the rest of the conference was 0-3 last year and have historically struggled in the NCAA Tournament. In the last two years, the Mountain West is 1-7 straight up in the opening round. It was widely considered one of the best conferences in the country, but if you start seeing Mountain West teams fall early again, I would fade the conference. One of the main reasons is the home court edges that teams like San Diego State, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah State all possess. They need to be just as good on a neutral count now.
Two years ago, it was the ACC who came to play after what was widely considered a down year for the conference. However, they posted a 14-5 record for the tournament sending both Duke and UNC to the Final Four while going 7-1 in the opening round.
Spotting the correct conference to play and fade can get you a long way during March Madness!
