Wagering Strategies for March Madness

There are few events in the world of sports that are as exciting as the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which is held every year starting in mid-March. It consists of 68 of the best Division I men’s basketball teams in the nation (expanded to 68 teams starting in 2011) in a single-elimination tournament that crowns the winning team as the season’s National Champion.  

The most common way to wager on the tournament as a whole is to participate in a bracket pool that awards a set number of points for each correct pick. The person with the most points at the end wins. While these pools can range from wagering a couple of bucks in the local office pool to investing a small fortune in a high-stakes bracket pool, there are a couple of basic things to keep in mind when making your picks.

Keep things in Perspective

The first thing to do is pick the teams that you believe will win the game in each round. This sounds simple enough, but many people get so hung up trying to predict upsets that they forget to pick the winner. Upsets are what make this tournament great, but they are not as prevalent as you may think, and they can be extremely difficult to uncover.

The lowest seed to ever win it all was the 1985 Villanova Wildcats as a No. 8.  In most pools, the points awarded for each round increase as the tournament progresses, so the goal is to advance as many teams as possible to the next round.

Do not go the other extreme and advance every No. 1 and No.2 seed all the way into the Elite Eight. As a general rule, two of the top eight teams will be eliminated by the end of the first weekend of play. Try to uncover the best No. 4 and No. 3 seeds and work them into your final eight teams.  

Always take into consideration a team’s overall record when making your picks. Teams with just a few losses, no matter what conference they come out of, know how to win. They may get seeded a bit lower than they should because of their conference, but this is what makes them a very attractive upset pick. Advancing lower-seeded teams with a high win/low loss total makes the most sense in the first two rounds as this advantage tends to diminish once the field gets pared down to the Sweet 16.

Unless you are playing a bracket pool for the pure fun of it, do your homework before making your picks for the final few rounds, because this is when the points in most pools start to pile up. Once again, your ultimate goal is to advance as many winners as possible so avoid just following suit with the most popular picks. Be sure to closely analyze all the No. 1 seeds to see which one is likely to get tripped up, as well as the No. 4’s and 3’s to find which one is poised to make a run all the way to the championship game.

Plot Your Final Four Picks First:

While it’s fun to try and figure out which teams may pull upsets early on, you’re better off trying to work backwards in the bracket. Look at each region and figure out which teams you might see playing in the Elite Eight, before penciling in which team you see emerging victorious and winding up in the Final Four.  

Do Your Research:

Sure, anyone can sit down and randomly pick teams but if you plan on finishing in the money when it’s all said and done, you must familiarize yourself with the teams. Look and see how teams finished the regular season, as teams that floundered late likely won’t be around long. Home records mean nothing as there are no home games in the tournament. Look at the records for teams on the road and on neutral floors. Keep an eye out on strength of schedule (check sites like KenPom, WarrenNolan, and Net Rankings at NCAA.com) and see how teams fared against other good teams: after all, you’re not going to cut down the nets without beating quality opponents. Also, watch for clashes of style, tempo and systems: a team like Houston, which relies on defense and slowing the pace to a glacial mark, would be a rough matchup if paired against an offensive powerhouse. Research can make or break you and even a little knowledge can go a long way when it comes to the fine line between being a winner and an also-ran.

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