Rastall Ramblings: Advice For Filling Out Your March Madness Bracket
It’s that wonderful time of year once again: March Madness. For many of us, whether you’re an avid college basketball fan or someone who only tunes in once March rolls around, that means it’s time to make a foolhardy effort to fill out a bracket that doesn’t go up in flames by the end of the first round.
I’m far from any kind of bracket expert, but here’s some advice for anyone still cramming to finish their brackets before the games tip off Thursday — from the top championship contenders to the double-digit seeds most primed to make a run.
Note: I’ll be referencing KenPom in this column, which is an analytical site ran by Ken Pomeroy that features adjusted efficiency metrics for men’s college basketball.
SEC and the top contenders
If you’ve been following college basketball this year, you know that perhaps the biggest storying in the sport has been the dominance of the SEC.
Typically, that’s a college football talking point, but SEC teams were historically good in non-conference play early on this season and they are sending an NCAA Tournament record 14 teams to the Big Dance this year.
Auburn is the No. 1 overall seed in the field and built up one of the best tournament resumes we’ve seen, though the SEC regular-season champion Tigers do enter the tournament having lost three of their last four.
Fellow No. 1 seed Florida is riding high after winning the SEC Tournament and has looked like perhaps the most complete team in college basketball for a couple months now. Tennessee is a No. 2 seed but also a national title contender with KenPom rankings of third on defense and 18th on offense.
Among the non-SEC teams, freshman sensation Cooper Flagg and the Duke Blue Devils enter the tournament as the KenPom No. 1 with a top-five offense and defense. An ankle sprain suffered by Flagg during the ACC Tournament could be a cause for concern, even though he’s expected to play.
Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Cougars are humming right along after tearing through the Big 12 as a defensive stalwart that makes threes at a high clip and compensates for poor shooting from inside the arc by limiting turnovers and cleaning up on the offensive boards.
Of the last 17 national champions, 13 of them were a No. 1 seed. The exceptions were No. 2 seed Villanova in 2016 and UConn on three different occasions. Usually, the entire Final Four isn’t too chalky, but a safe pick for your national champion is typically the wise move.
Be wary of Michigan State and St. John’s
Tom Izzo and Rick Pitino are two of the greatest coaches in the history of college basketball. It’s only natural to trust proven winners like them when trying to sort out the chaos of March Madness. But for either Michigan State or St. John’s to make a Final Four run, they’ll need to be historical outliers.
Per Ken Pomeroy, since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there have been 39 teams to enter the tourney as a No. 1 or No. 2 seed who weren’t part of the AP preseason top 25 ranking. Not a single one of them has ever made the Final Four.
That list of teams who have tried and failed to defy that trend includes squads coached by the likes of Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim, Jay Wright, Tony Bennett and even Izzo himself. On top of that, St. John’s and Michigan State are the second- and third-worst three-point shooting teams, respectively, in the entire tournament field.
One could argue that maybe that sort of historic precedent matters less in the transfer portal era where teams undergo more radical roster changes in the offseason. Plus, you would think a coach like Izzo or Pitino would be the one to buck that type of trend. But take caution when picking either to make a deep run.
The search for Cinderella
Perhaps the greatest part of March Madness every year is the double-digit seed(s) who pull off memorable first-round upsets and sometimes even make deep runs. Who might the glass slipper fit on this year?
No. 12 seed UC San Diego is one of the great stories in college basketball. In their first year of tournament eligibility as a Division I program, the Tritons punched their ticket to the Big Dance.
UC San Diego sits at 36th in the overall in KenPom and goes up against a No. 5 seed in Michigan that is only 11 spots higher in 25th. The Tritons are one of the best defenses in the country in forcing turnovers. Coincidentally, the Wolverines have a major turnover issue on offense and have made a living on winning close games. Could be a good recipe for a 12-5 upset.
Perhaps an even more intriguing 12-5 upset pick is Colorado State over Memphis. The Rams won 10 games in a row en route to a Mountain West tournament title. The Tigers put together a very impressive non-conference resume, but their metrics were hurt by them regularly winning relatively close games against inferior competition in a lackluster American Athletic Conference.
Colorado State actually rates better than Memphis in KenPom (42 vs. 51) and the Tigers might be without key guard Tyrese Hunter, so the Rams actually opened as slight favorites per Vegas lines.
Another fun March Madness staple? The elite institutions of the Ivy League playing the role of Cinderella.
Since 2010, Ivy teams are 6-7 in the first round despite being a 12 seed or worse each year. The most recent Ivy upset came last year when Yale knocked off Auburn as a No. 13 seed. The Bulldogs are back again as a No. 13 seed going against an SEC opponent (Texas A&M). Also, Yale is the fourth-best three-point shooting team in the field.
Best of luck to all in your bracket groups. I look forward to losing to a family member who picked their entire bracket based on which school names and mascots they think sounded the coolest.
